I released the green gra.s.s-snake,

Stood back and spoke aloud:

'Is this what it feels like to be G.o.d?'

'Only what it's like to be English,'

Said G.o.d (speaking for a change in French);

'I would have let the snake finish his lunch!'

A Song For Lost Friends

The past is always with us, for it feeds the present . . .

1.

As a boy I stood on the edge of the railway-cutting,

Outside the dark tunnel, my hands touching

The hot rails, waiting for them to tremble

At the coming of the noonday train.

The whistle of the engine hung on the forest's silence.

Then out of the tunnel, a green-gold dragon

Came plunging, thundering past-

Out of the tunnel, out of the grinning dark.

And the train rolled on, every day

Hundreds of people coming or going or running away-

Goodbye, goodbye!

I haven't seen you again, bright boy at the carriage window,

Waving to me, calling,

But I've loved you all these years and looked for you everywhere,

In cities and villages, beside the sea,

In the mountains, in crowds at distant places;

Returning always to the forest's silence,

To watch the windows of some pa.s.sing train . . .

2.

My father took me by the hand and led me

Among the ruins of old forts and palaces.

We lived in a tent near the tomb of Humayun

Among old trees. Now multi-storeyed blocks

Rise from the plain-tomorrow's ruins. . . .