Crossing the frontier they were stopped in time,
 Told, quite politely, they would have to wait:
 Passports in order, nothing to declare
 And surely holding hands was not a crime
 Until they saw how, ranged across the gate,
 All their most formidable friends were there.

 Wearing his conscience like a crucifix,
 Her father, rampant, nursed the Family Shame;
 And, armed with their old-fashioned dinner-gong,
 His aunt, who even when they both were six,
 Had just to glance towards a childish game
 To make them feel that they were doing wrong.

 And both their mothers, simply weeping floods,
 Her head-mistress, his boss, the parish priest,
 And the bank manager who cashed their cheques;
 The man who sold him his first rubber-goods;
 Dog Fido, from whose love-life, shameless beast,
 She first observed the basic facts of sex.

 They looked as though they had stood there for hours;
 For years -- perhaps for ever. In the trees
 Two furtive birds stopped courting and flew off;
 While in the grass beside the road the flowers
 Kept up their guilty traffic with the bees.
 Nobody stirred. Nobody risked a cough.

 Nobody spoke. The minutes ticked away;
 The dog scratched idly. Then, as parson bent
 And whispered to a guard who hurried in,
 The customs-house loudspeakers with a bray
 Of raucous and triumphant argument
 Broke out the wedding march from Lohengrin.

 He switched the engine off: "We must turn back."
 She heard his voice break, though he had to shout
 Against a din that made their senses reel,
 And felt his hand, so tense in hers, go slack.
 But suddenly she laughed and said: "Get out!
 Change seats! Be quick!" and slid behind the wheel.

 And drove the car straight at them with a harsh,
 Dry crunch that showered both with scraps and chips,
 Drove through them; barriers rising let them pass
 Drove through and on and on, with Dad's moustache
 Beside her twitching still round waxen lips
 And Mother's tears still streaming down the glass.