Those long uneven lines
 Standing as patiently
 As if they were stretched outside
 The Oval or Villa Park,
 The crowns of hats, the sun
 On moustached archaic faces
 Grinning as if it were all
 An August Bank Holiday lark;
 And the shut shops, the bleached
 Established names on the sunblinds,
 The farthings and sovereigns,
 And dark-clothed children at play
 Called after kings and queens,
 The tin advertisements
 For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
 Wide open all day;
 And the countryside not caring
 The place-names all hazed over
 With flowering grasses, and fields
 Shadowing Domesday lines
 Under wheats' restless silence;
 The differently-dressed servants
 With tiny rooms in huge houses,
 The dust behind limousines;
 Never such innocence,
 Never before or since,
 As changed itself to past
 Without a word--the men
 Leaving the gardens tidy,
 The thousands of marriages
 Lasting a little while longer:
 Never such innocence again.