Change and Decay in all around I see ......

The trees and the leaves and the air so sweet
Pure and simple thoughts,
And honour, friends and peaceful dreams
Are swept beneath my feet.
If fumes and neons, recorded sounds,
Are all the world it seems,
Where can I look to see a song
Of Nature's tuneful themes?
Where can I see a bird on wing
Above the virgin ground?
Must cellophane engulf us all and stifle Nature's sound?
A thought made heard in utterance
A thought to change the times,
A plastic coat of image
To screen a common mind.
Yet think and plan and execute
Tear up that old oak tree.
And build a plastic monument -
Then seek tranquillity
You'll find it far from fibre.
Oh! turn from progress fair
And gaze upon a grassy mound
And search for Nature rare.

The ages gone had plenty,
The distant tree was green,
Not clouded by a greying fog
Nor guarded by a screen.
So as they die some realise
And stop death with a law:
Divert that road: Put down that axe:
We have not many more.
But science stands, machine in hand
And waits to cast a blow.
As Nature's cut and buckled
Defence it cannot show.

Man uproots ancestors' life
And plants rough brick and stone.
O leave the tree, the leaf, the air,
Leave Nature well alone.

A. Welling. Lower VI
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