A Forsyte House: Soames's Home Poem by Frank Avon

It owned a copper door knocker
of individual design,
windows which had been altered
to open outwards,
hanging flower boxes
filled with fuchsias,
and at the back (a great feature)
a little court tiled with jade-green tiles,
and surrounded by pink hydrangeas,
in peacock-blue tubs.
Here, under a parchment-coloured Japanese sunshade
covering the whole end,
inhabitants or visitors
could be screened
from the eyes of the curious
while they drank tea
and examined at their leisure
the latest of Soamses's little silver boxes.

The inner decoration favoured
he First Empire and William Morris
[not red velvet chairs
or modern Italian marble].
For its size, the house was commodious;
there were countless nooks
resembling birds' nests,
and little things made of silver
were deposited like eggs.