大象传媒

This and another poem was written while Dick was recovering from illness in either "Chungkai" or "Wuntakian", while a prisoner of Japan.

You read in books of lovely tropic seas,
That are crystal clear or gleaming turquoise blue,
I鈥檇 sooner be on Britain鈥檚 shore, and very likely freeze
Where cold grey break like rollers do.
*
You hear of supple palms, so slim and graceful,
With waving fronds which look like fairy lace,
But still the trees for which my hearts strings pull,
Are sturdy gnarled old oaks which throw acorns round the place.
*
That intoxicating, thrilling night,
Is in reality full of hums and trills and screams,
Give me the silent thrill of frosty pale moonlight,
Of English country lanes, bounded by frozen over streams.
*
We see birds of paradise and strutting peacocks gay,
orchids, and such things as trees with lights ablaze,
I seem to fancy Robin Redbreasts, we used to feed each day,
and a garden full of roses, where we used to sit and gaze.
*
The fruit and food out here they say, is fanciful and rare,
All rainbow hued, in shapes that make you dizzy,
But the food that is my favourite and most thrilling fare,
Is hot roast beef and Yorkshire pud鈥檕n these I can get busy.
*
The native girls are dusky southern queens,
鈥楾ill spitting 鈥渂etel鈥� juice, show rows of crimson teeth,
But all the time, my thoughts wander so it seems,
To blue-eyed, brownette, English beauties, one stole my heart, the thief.

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