There's a plant, valerian, Flowering where few others can: How it comes there, no-one knows, But where fire has been it grows; And in London burnt and bare Bursts its way up everywhere. Is this same valerian Nature's substitute for man? Not a plant of any price, Not a civic edelweiss, But a desultory weed, Casual growth of casual seed. Is it rooted in "goodbye," 'Vale,' that Imperial cry Heard at the Decline and Fall When the Roman left the Wall, Wall and Tower and Barbican Left to mere valerian? |