Acid reign
motored homeward with the crowd That sits on tails and queues up hills When all at once, — I cried aloud Another slab of daffodils; Despite the salt, beneath the trees, Where'er I looked, this bright disease.
Continuous as the cars that grind and rumble all the working day, They stretched their never-blending kinds Along the urban motorway: Ten thousand saw I at a glance Nodding their heads, St Vitus' dance.
The sun above them flamed; but they Upstaged the sun chromatically; My eyes could not be dragged away, From this naive and trite display. I gazed — and gazed — but little thought What loss to me the show had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie In what should be a pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye, That vegetable platitude!
And then my heart with horror fills and winces at the daffodils,
Stephen Anderton
Previous page
