| Dancing Dust |
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| Poems by Mollie Caird (1922-2000) |
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| Floodlighting in Oxford |
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When Oxford in her pristine innocence Rose by the river, she was fresh and clean; Only the water-meadows’ dewy sheen Lapped at her walls and towers; no dissonance Of screaming tyres and engines broke the immense Quads’ quiet. Her citizens had seen No bus or taxi; on the daisied green Their only Morris was the morris dance. But they saw not, as we see, Magdalen tower Frail as a chinese lantern, light as air, Tossed on the night sky like a golden flower, Moth-soft and bubble-blown; nor, tongued like fire, Spear-sharp and silver, infinitely fair, The flaming candle of Saint Mary’s spire. Oxford Times, 10 August 1962 The Dancing Dust and other poems, 1983 |