You Are Not Having Any Fun At All

Popular Memory

I walked under the autumned populars that my father
planted
On a day in April when I was a child
Running beside a heap of suckers
From which he picked the straightest, most promising.

My father dreamt of forests, he is dead
And there are popular forests in the waste-places
And on the banks of drains.

When I look up
I see my father
Peering through the branched sky.


After May

May came, and every shabby phoenix flapped
A coloured rag in lieu of shining wings;
In school bad manners spat and went unslapped
Schoolmistress Fancy dreamt of other things.
The lilac blossomed for a day or two
Gaily, and then grew weary of her fame.
Plough-horses out on grass could now pursue
The pleasures of the very mute and tame.

A light that might be mystic or a fraud
Played on far hills beyond all common sight,
And some men said that it was Adam's God
As Adam saw before the Apple-bite,
Sweet May is gone, and now must poets croon
The praises of a rather stupid June.