5 OCTOBER 1951, Page 17

Hampshire Autumn

AND now we settle for the autumn drowse:

The bee, snapdragon-trapped, turns in and snores; Dogs idle in mid-scratch ; men gape like cows. Ripeness is all. . . . Lethargy is outdoors.

By harvest-shaven fields the old blue bus At cottages and farm-lanes tremblestopping, Missus heaves aboard, mornings all of us Who trundle into Lymington for shopping.

Tiles are newly gilt with pats of lichen, Window plants and dahlias are ablaze, Plum-and-wasp is boiling in the kitchen, Oilywoite is Tennysonian haze —

• And I remember, bumping on the road, It was in Hampshire that Keats wrote the Ode.