MCMXIV

Those long uneven lines

Standing as patiently

As if they were stretched outside

The Oval or Villa Park

The crowns of hats the sun

On moustached archaic faces

Grinning as if it were all

An August bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops the bleached

Established names on the sunblinds

The farthings and sovereigns

Adn dark-clothed children at play

Called after kings and queens

The tin advertisements

For cocoa and twist and the pubs

Wide open all day;

And the countryside ont caring:

The place-names all hazed over

With flowering grasses and fields

Shadowing Domesday lines

Under wheat's restless silence;

The differently-dressed servants

With tiny rooms in huge houses

The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence

Never before or since

As changed itself to past

Without a word--the men

Leaving the gardens tidy

The thousands of marriages

Lasting a littlewhile longer:

Never such innocence again.