Louis MacNeice

And this, ladies and gentlemen, whom I am not in fact Conducting, was his office all those minutes ago,
This man you never heard of
These are the bills In the intray, the ash in the ashtray, the grey memoranda stacked Against him, the se...

Indoors the tang of a tiny oil lamp
The winking signal on the waste of sea
Indoors the sound of the wind
Outdoors the wind

The room was suddenly rich and the great           bay-window
Spawning snow and pink roses against
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it

Only let it form within his hands once more - The moment cradled like a brandy glass
Sitting alone in the empty dining hall… From the chandeliers the snow begins to fall Piling around carafes and table legs And chokes the passage of the revol...

A spiral of green hay on the end of a rake:
The moment is sweat and sun-prick---children and old women Big in a tiny field, midgets against the mountain,
So toy-like yet so purposed you could take This for the Middle Ages

In my childhood trees were green And there was plenty to be seen
Come back early or never come
My father made the walls resound,
He wore his collar the wrong way round

The sunlight on the
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the
Within its nets of gold;