No Change of Place

Who will endure

Heat of day and winter danger,

Journey from one place to another,

Nor be content to lie

Till evening upon headland over bay,

Between the land and sea

Or smoking wait till hour of food,

Leaning on chained-up gate

At edge of wood?

Metals run,

Burnished or rusty in the sun,

From town to town,

And signals all along are down;

Yet nothing passes

But envelopes between these places,

Snatched at the gate and panting read indoors,

And first spring flowers arriving smashed,

Disaster stammered over wires,

And pity flashed.

For should professional traveller come,

Asked at the fireside he is dumb,

Declining with a secret smile,

And all the while

Conjectures on our maps grow stranger

And threaten danger.

There is no change of place:

No one will ever know

For what conversion brilliant capital is waiting,

What ugly feast may village band be celebrating;

For no one goes

Further than railhead or the ends of piers,

Will neither go nor send his son

Further through foothills than the rotting stack

Where gaitered gamekeeper with dog and gun

Will shout ‘Turn back’.