Autobiography (september 1940) - Poem by Louis MacNeice

In my childhood trees were green
And there was plenty to be seen.

Come back early or never come.

My father made the walls resound,
He wore his collar the wrong way round.

Come back early or never come.

My mother wore a yellow dress;
Gentle, gently, gentleness.

Come back early or never come.

When I was five the black dreams came;
Nothing after was quite the same.

Come back early or never come.

The dark was talking to the dead;
The lamp was dark beside my bed.

Come back early or never come.

When I woke they did not care;
Nobody, nobody was there.

Come back early or never come.

When my silent terror cried,
Nobody, nobody replied.

Come back early or never come.

I got up; the chilly sun
Saw me walk away alone.

Come back early or never come..


Louis Macneice.

There once was a man
with the gravest of frowns,

hung like a ham
by the folk of his town

who wanted to see
if his sad mouth might be

any happier turned upsidedown ..

There's beauty in words,
but often I find
more in the ones I have heard
than in mine;

more in the sound
of the ones I have read,
than those at the tip
of the tongue in my head..

Easy flow the waters
of the river passing by,

though we straighten them with walls
and narrow them in time,

and lace them up with bridges
to bind them where they lay,

still the waters, like a lifetime,
slip their bonds and pass away..

Down by the sea
where the marram grass grows
there's a ******* the beach
in a rusting boat
with a tablecloth sail
and it's rudder broke
and her eyes are an ocean wide..

This morning at daybreak
and half awake still
he bundled his memories
on to a stretcher
and carried them up atop
Cothelstone hill
and sorted them through
for the moment he met her;

the memories bandaged,
the ones with bruised limbs,
he laid on the heather
like hospital beds
but the one of their first kiss
he threw to the wind
and asked the wind's help
for to help him forget..