i just think it will happen, soon.

i thought it would last my time —
the sense that, beyond the town,
there would always be fields and farms,
where the village louts could climb
such trees as were not cut down:
i knew there’d be false alarms

in the papers about old streets
and split-level shopping, but some
have always been left so far;
and when the old part retreats
as the bleak high-risers come
we can always escape in the car.

things are tougher than we are, just
as earth will always respond
however we mess it about;
chuck filth in the sea, if you must:
the tides will be clean beyond.
— but what do i feel now? doubt?

or age, simply? the crowd
is young in the M1 café;
their kids are screaming for more—
more houses, more parking allowed,
more caravan sites, more pay.
on the business page, a score

of spectacled grins approve
some takeover bid that entails
five per cent profit (and ten
per cent more in the estuaries): move
your works to the unspoilt dales
(grey area grants)! and when

you try to get near the sea
in summer …
it seems, just now,
to be happening so very fast;
despite all the land left free
for the first time i feel somehow
that it isn’t going to last,

that before i snuff it, the whole
boiling will be bricked in
except for the tourist parts —
first slum of europe: a role
it won’t be so hard to win,
with a cast of crooks and tarts.

and that will be england gone,
the shadows, the meadows, the lanes
the guildhalls, the carved choirs.
there’ll be books; it will linger on
in galleries; but all that remains
for us will be concrete and tyres.

most things are never meant.
this won’t be, most likely: but greeds
and garbage are too thick-strewn
to be swept up now, or invent
excuses that make them all needs.
i just think it will happen, soon.

-- going going, philip larkin