29 APRIL 1966, Page 29

The Sunday People

After the dolour of bells The place was shut.

Though, at certain intervals, Noises squeezed out Through venerable walls; Then all was quiet Before faint vocables Told they were out: The Sunday People; slow On mournful feet, A dark, irregular queue Trickled from the great Hunk of masonry And moved through the morning light As now, through memory,

I.inen and faces white.

The smell still lingers; the smell Of flowers and sick Comes back.when church bells call; These, too, begin it, The wax-faced queue who fill This Sunday memory:

Lovers of hymn and hospital

Roast beef and cemetery.

VERNON SCANNE1