This town is Hell, and all the people in it
Are devils, roasting for their sins like cinders;
They've train and tram instead of lark and linnet,
For sun are lamps, for sky are only windows,
They have no air to breathe, no room to rove,
And crowd so closely that you cannot move;
Robbing each other whilst nobody hinders:
In towns, there is no Providence above.
If Providence there is above this city,
The fog and smoke must cover it from pity,
For folk are crazed, and run instead of walking,
To catch—they know not what—all nonsense talking.
Old farm! Old farm! I wish I hadn't left you!
And if my time came back, I wouldn't part:
You gave me pleasant thoughts to dwell upon,
And peaceful days and quietness of heart.
For here, no happiness can come at all,
The nights are cursed by idle folk at play;
Here is no sleepy smell of new mown hay,
Or soothing noise of cattle in their stall;
No scent of may in bloom, or beans in flower,
No drowsy sound of bees among the clover;
But only hooters, droning every hour;
With smoke and dirt and misery all over.
Sometimes, when dazed by this un-human place
I have remembered me the days so dear,
And seen again the horses out at plough,
Their shoulders pressing forward in the gear:
The smell, the sound, come back with strange surprise,
To think that I am down Long Martin Fen;
It brings the tears into my aching eyes,
To dream that I am farming once again.