They will walk there, the sons of our great grandsons and <br />Will know no reason for the old love of the land. <br />There will be no tiny bent-browed houses in the <br />Twilight to watch, nor small shops of multi-miscellany. <br />The respectable and red-brick will rule all, <br />With green-paint railings outside the front door wall; <br />And children will not play skip-games in the gutter, <br />Nor dust fly furious in hot valour of footer; <br />Queerness and untidiness will be smoothed out <br />As with any steam-roller tactful, and there'll be no doubt <br />About the dust-bins or the colour of curtains, <br />No talking at the doors, no ten o'clock flirtings, <br />And Nicholas will look as strange as any <br />Goddess ungarmented in that staid company, <br />With lovely attitude of fixed grace, <br />But naked and embarrassed in the red brick place. <br /> <br />We see her well, and should have great thanksgiving, <br />Living in sight and form of more than common living. <br />She is a City still and the centuries drape her yet; <br />Something in the air or light cannot or will not forget <br />The past ages of her, and the toil which made her, <br />The courage of her, the army that made not afraid her, <br />And a shapely fullness of being drawn maybe from the air; <br />Crystal or mellow about her or above her ever: <br />Record of desire, apparent of dreamer or striver <br />And still the house between the Cotswolds bare <br />And the Welsh wars, Mistress of the widening river.<br /><br />Ivor Gurney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/time-to-come-3/
