Will You Walk a Little Faster? Comments

Like Rosamund the Fair
I speed over Folly Bridge

like Alice
I look both ways
before crossing Speedwell Street

I'm not
as you see
an official guided walking tour

Like Fair Rosamund
I quickstep down Rose Place

like swift Alice
I skip across St Aldate's

the brainbox city
huffing and puffing in my ear

I'm not hurrying off
to visit a dozen harpsichords

or the church
where William Morris was married

or to see the remains of a dodo
I plan to read

not one
of the six million books

in The Bodleian
or admire a single dreamy spire

or stand in sombre silence
on the spot

where Latimer
Mortimer and Ridley
were roasted alive on god's turnspit

because I'm heading straight
for the heart

of this leather-bound city
where's there's good reason for shadows

where I'll find
panaceas of lavender

penny-royal and nettle
rose-petal potions

medicinal oak-scented valerian
balms and syrups of hollyhock

daffodil and milk-thistle
the Many-Leaf Pharmacy where

like the porpoise not the snail
I'm walking a little faster

waltzing like Rosamund the Fair
and Little White Alice

through the wards and waiting rooms
of The Physic Garden

earthy source of tincture and tisane
the help-yourself of nature

who wears a green coat
not a white
don't you agree?
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