Written From Plymouth. Poem by Drummond Allison

Written from the Plymouth where portentous mist
Passes its hands across the tattered theatres'
Faces, hit houses hate to hate but must;

Recumbent Sunderlands all afternoon
As well-fed manatees wait on the water
And a destroyer sprints from swoon to swoon;

The hawsers of balloons above the Hoe
Lead to a kind of unkind smile, Drake's Island
Scowls through its barrack windows at the slow

Horizon wriggle; while those high hotels
The 'Lockyer' 'Continental' 'Duke of Cornwall'
Lick their cracked lips of steps, for pleasure sells

Providing pain provides it gladly. Most
Like unpretending children Plymouth quivers,
Its thoughts apparent in each cast and mast.