Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VALERIAN by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB

First Line: THERE'S A PLANT, VALERIAN
Last Line: LEFT TO MERE VALERIAN?
Subject(s): FAREWELL; LONDON; TYRANNY & TYRANTS; PARTING; DICTATORS;
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?



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