The Populists

And now: rousing music.

A cadre of recruits sing

‘Oh, to be in England!’

as if not already there.

Tiresome rhetorics

speak on our behalf,

sustained by violins –

cadenzas swell to embrace

dawn over the shires

with audible relief tones –

though something always

keeping out of reach.

"And so let us receive blame,

each according to our tribe,

and may those exonerated

forever receive beatitude

each according to their preferences:

mown lawns, canal banks, lupins,

share dividends, King Edwards,

warm dark ale.

"But let those be cursed

who substitute

stern oaks,

lakes, lochs,

thatch, ketch,

for that which

fetches us now

(carpark,

hypermarket,

slip road,

universal

consumer

experience).

"Out, damn’d modernisers, globalists.

Let there be no illusion.

Let there be no allusion –

least of all to

philology,

philosophy,

foreign accents …"

Allow us our own miseries

in bleak, windswept patches.