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O early one morning I walked out like Agag,
Early one morning to walk through the fire
Dodging the pythons that leaked on the pavements
With tinkle of glasses and tangle of wire.

— Louis MacNeice Holes in the Sky (1949)

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Notes from Wikiquote

MacNeice’s poem, a grotesque vision of the London Blitz, is not to be confused with the cowboy ballad "The Streets of Laredo"

More quotes by Louis MacNeice

The little sardine men crammed in a monster toy
Who tilt their aggregate beast against our crumbling Troy.

Poems (1937)

Something of glass about her, of dead water,
Chills and holds us,
Far more fatal than painted flesh or the lodestone of live hair
This despair of crystal brilliance.

Poems (1937)

Under the coffered gilt the court historian
Turns the mothy silks that time has left him.

Poems 1925–1940 (1940)

Holidays should be like this,
Free from over-emphasis,
Time for soul to stretch and spit
Before the world comes back on it.

Letters from Iceland (1937)

In my childhood trees were green
And there was plenty to be seen.

Plant and Phantom (1941)

All Louis MacNeice quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Louis MacNeice (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.