MCMXIV

    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.