Elizabeth Jennings:
In a Garden
“gardener”
“looks wistful” “waiting an event” “spruce” “metaphor of Eden” “quietly godlike” “no one tempting… make the bad Choice” “felt lost” |
“wonder why”
“beech tree” “shadow” “seemed a kind of threat” “too neat” “cares in the wrong way” “mocked by the smell” “sickness for Eden was so strong” |
Philip Larkin
Going, Going
“last time”
“there would always be fields and farms” “village louts” “trees as were not cut down” “false alarms” “old streets” “split level shopping” “bleak high-risers” “always escape in the car” “earth will always respond” “chuck filth in the sea” “the tides will be clean beyond” “do I feel now? Doubt? Age, simply?” “kids are screaming for more” “more houses… more pay” “takeover bid” |
“profit”
“unspoilt dales” “happening so very fast” “it isn’t going to last” “snuff it” “whole Boiling will be bricked in” “first slum of Europe” “cast of crooks and tarts” “that will be England gone” “linger on in galleries” “all that remains will be concrete and tyres” “most things are never meant” “greeds and garbage are too thick-strewn” “invent excuses” “it will happen, soon” |
Dylan Thomas
Fern Hill
“young and easy”
“happy as the grass was green” “dingle starry” “Time let me hail and climb” “Golden in the heydays of his eyes” “prince” “lordly” “honoured” “famous” “green and carefree” “singing as the farm was home” “the sun that is young only once” “Time let me play” “Golden in the mercy of his means” “green and golden” “Sabbath rang slowly” |
“pebbles of the holy streams”
“lovely” “nightly under the simple stars” “owls were bearing the farm away” “blessed among the stables” “nothing I cared” “before the children green and golden follow him out of grace” “in the lamb white days” “time would take me” “young and easy in the mercy of his means” “time held me green and dying” “though I sang in my chains like the sea” |