Recipe For Repose

The following is extracted from The Conchologists' Newsletter, No. 35, p. 177, dated December 1970.

RECIPE FOR REPOSE

From the cult of the headlong and hasty,
        From the worship of spasms and speed,
We turn to a topic more tasty
        To serve a contemplative need;
From rockets where ruin the aim is,
        And all that the atom entails,
We look for relief – and our aim is
        The watching of snails.

For the snail is an excellent creature,
        It hates to be hustled along;
Repose is its dominant feature,
        Rapidity seems to it wrong.
The house problem leaves it unworried,
        It bears on its back its abode;
Unharrassed, unhampered, unhurried,
        It goes its own road.

So here’s to the snail and its watchers
        All pledged to the leisurely life,
Forsaking the bustle of botchers
        Who rush into trouble and strife !
When stresses and strains seem to harden,
        Would you weather the gusts and the gale ?
Get you out to the green of the garden
        And study the snail !

By ‘Lucio’ (Mr. Phillips), “In recognition of the first anniversary of the British Snail-watching Society,” Manchester Guardian, 7 September 1946.
                                                                                                                       (From A. E. Ellis)