Lines written to Martyn Skinner before his Departure from Oxfordshire in Search of Quiet—1961

Return, return to Ealing,

    Worn poet of the farm!

Regain your boyhood feeling

    Of uninvaded calm!

For there the leafy avenues

    Of lime and chestnut mix’d

Do widely wind, by art designed,

    The costly houses ’twixt.

No early morning tractors

    The thrush and blackbird drown,

No nuclear reactors

    Bulge huge below the down,

No youth upon his motor-bike

    His lust for power fulfils,

With dentist’s drill intent to kill

    The silence of the hills.

In Ealing on a Sunday

    Bell-haunted quiet falls,

In Ealing on a Monday

    ‘Milk-o!’ the milkman calls;

No lorries grind in bottom gear

    Up steep and narrow lanes,

Nor constant here offend the ear

    Low-flying aeroplanes.

Return, return to Ealing,

    Worn poet of the farm!

Regain your boyhood feeling

    Of uninvaded calm!

Where smoothly glides the bicycle

    And softly flows the Brent

And a gentle gale from Perivale

    Sends up the hayfield scent.