1. One morning early I met armoured cars
2. In convoy, warbling along on powerful tyres,
3. All camouflaged with broken alder brances,
4. And headphoned soldiers standing up in turrets.
5. How long were they approaching down my roads
6. As if they owned them? The whole country was sleeping.
7. I had rights-of-way, fields, cattle in my keeping,
8. Tractors hitched to buckrakes in open sheds,
9. Silos, chill gates, wet slates, the greens and reds
10. Of outhouse roofs. Whom should I run to tell
11. Among all of those with their back doors on the latch
12. For the bringer of bad news, that small-hours visitant
13. Who, by being expected, might be kept distant?
14. Sowers of seed, erectors of headstones ...
15. O charioteers, above your dormant guns,
16. It stands here still, stands vibrant as you pass,
17. The visible, untoppled omphalos.
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