Dancing Dust
	Poems by Mollie Caird (1922-2000)
	Merton Cobbles
Home Alphabetic index of poems Thematic index of poems Biography Gallery Contact and links	If they take the cobbles from Merton Street The traffic will filter down Magpie and Kybald and Logic Lane, The prettiest streets in town; White doves will rise from the garden cote In a flutter of fan-tailed fright, And the Chapel's great east window Will shatter like coloured light. Beam Hall will rock and tremble, The little houses shake As the vans dash round by Oriel Square, And all for progress' sake. It's delicate treading on cobbles, Just like walking on eggs, No work for wheels or engines, But some of us still have legs. When they take the Merton cobbles One more fort will fall To the noisy stinking Enemy Who's out to destroy us all. There was a short-lived proposal to tarmac over the cobbles. Oxford Times, 4 October 1963