Louis MacNeice

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

Rows of books around me stand,
Fence me in on either hand;
Through that forest of dead wordsI would hunt the living birds -So I write these lines for
Who have felt the death-wish too,

The Junes were free and full, driving through
Roads, the mudguards brushing the cowparsley,
Through fields of mustard and under boldly
Mays and

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

Down the road someone is practising scales,
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails,
Man's heart expands to tinker with his car For this is Sunday morning,
Fate's great bazaar;

I am not yet born;
O hear me
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or theclub-footed ghoul come near me
I am not yet born, console me

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