In the licorice fields at Pontefract <br />My love and I did meet <br />And many a burdened licorice bush <br />Was blooming round our feet; <br />Red hair she had and golden skin, <br />Her sulky lips were shaped for sin, <br />Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd <br />The strongest legs in Pontefract. <br /> <br />The light and dangling licorice flowers <br />Gave off the sweetest smells; <br />From various black Victorian towers <br />The Sunday evening bells <br />Came pealing over dales and hills <br />And tanneries and silent mills <br />And lowly streets where country stops <br />And little shuttered corner shops. <br /> <br />She cast her blazing eyes on me <br />And plucked a licorice leaf; <br />I was her captive slave and she <br />My red-haired robber chief. <br />Oh love! for love I could not speak, <br />It left me winded, wilting, weak, <br />And held in brown arms strong and bare <br />And wound with flaming ropes of hair.<br /><br />John Betjeman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-licorice-fields-at-pontefract/
