Along the high embankment of a disused railway line
Which, thanks to Dr Beeching’s cruel cuts of nineteen sixty-three,
Is now a pleasant country walk, a procession of nine-
Teen Morris-Men danced out of the mist. They seemed to me
To be coming from a better, friendlier place
Than the rather unpleasant one we inhabited;
Each man had an open, smiling face.
Oh yes, I know for these chaps it’s just a hobby, said
By some to create a wholly bogus illusion of bucolic peace,
But when we heard the bells, and the pipes and tabors,
And then these men came dancing through the trees,
Oh, I knew they were really just our friends and neighbours,
Yet as they capered with their silly hats and sticks
And their gaily beribboned cuisses,
They were, as they performed their antic tricks,
A happy codicil to summer’s lease.
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