For the wall is old,
It is a Roman wall.




The Cyclists



Spread on the roadway,
With open-blown jackets,
Like black, soaring pinions,
They swoop down the hillside,
The Cyclists.

Seeming dark-plumaged
Birds, after carrion,
Careening and circling,
Over the dying
Of England.

She lies with her bosom
Beneath them, no longer
The Dominant Mother,
The Virile -- but rotting
Before time.

The smell of her, tainted,
Has bitten their nostrils.