by Jeremy Lloyd

A teddy bear sits on a mattress
One glass eye and threadbare paw
Looking at a cuckoo clock
Which shows it's ten to four

Four o'clock is teddy's teatime
Lots of friends and fancy cake
Although it's only pretend eating
Oh how long ten minutes take

Shadows grow on distant hillsides
Orange sun on glassy sea
All in his amber eye reflected
And still ten minutes left 'til tea

The mattress, striped, is old and broken
Rusty springs through stuffing show
The cuckoo clock is also broken
But how's a teddy supposed to know?

Unaware he's been discarded
That this is not the nursery cot
The hills and sea just glass, old papers
On a disused rubbish plot

A telephone that no one answers
Empty tins that once held tea
The clock that still says nearly teatime
Where can all the children be?

For ages now he's lain unwanted
Saluting with his threadbare paw
He'll never know he's been abandoned
'Til the clock reads after four

Don't tell him that the clock is broken
For as long as teddy doesn't know
It'll always soon be teatime
As it was so long ago.