Douglas Dunn(b. 1942)
In the Grounds
Yorkshire,1975
Barbarians in a garden, softness does
Approve of who we are as it does those
Who when we speak proclaim us barbarous
And say we have no business with the rose.
Gently the grass waves, and its green applauds
The justice, not of progress, but of growth.
We walk as people on the paths of gods
And in our minds we harmonize them both.
Disclosures of these grounds—a river view,
Two Irish wolfhounds watching on a lawn;
A spinster with her sewing stares at you,
And begs you leave her pretty world alone.
More books than prejudice in our young minds . . .
We could not harm her, would not, would prefer
A noise less military and more kind
Than our boots make across her wide parterre.2
We are intransigent, at odds with them.
They see our rabble-dreams as new contempt
For England's art of house and leaf. Condemn
Our clumsiness—you do not know, how, unkempt
And coarse, we hurt a truth with truth, still true
To who we are: barbarians, whose chins
Drool with ale-stinking hair, whose horses chew
Turf owned by watching, frightened mandarins,bureaucrats
Their surly nephews lounging at each gate,
Afraid we'll steal their family's treasured things,
Then hawk them—pictures, furniture and plate—
Round the encampments of our saddle-kings.