Dancing Dust |
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Poems by Mollie Caird (1922-2000) |
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Port
Meadow in June |
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Never has Oxford any place more gay Than this upon a summer Saturday: Bikini'd nymphs among the buttercups, Young cricketers with beach balls; plastic cups, Picnics and towels: kaleidoscopic jumble Of blossoms, Bossoms, bosoms. Babies tumble At river's edge, and dig the gravelly sand. Now in the joyous band Untrammelled horses, tails astream behind, Gallop in mighty circles with the wind, The constant wind that blows here overall, Worries and whips the redshank's piping call, Shivers the poplars, stirs the regal state Of the clouds' ermine coats, Hustles the sailing boats, Joins with the laughing sun to celebrate Midsummer marriage of the earth and sky, Whose prothalamion the lark on high Erratic sings, like Spenser, years long gone: — "Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song." Bossoms is a boatyard at Fiddlers Island between Port Meadow and Binsey. Oxford Times, 29 June 1962 |