On Sydenham Hill the sphinxes sit
and look at Kent.
Behind their backs are groves
of buddleia and willowherb;
bees move among them.

A Crystal Palace stood here once;
a glittering canopy of glass above the heads
of empresses and kings. Grocer's lads and chambermaids
flirted through the statuary,
and swaggering in the medieval court
were heroes of the Transvaal or the Oval.
Thousands came
to feel the thrill of hellfire sermons,
to gasp at tightrope somersaults.

A pleasure garden spread around;
the air was full of fountain-plumes,
and boater-wearing men
escorted crinolines and parasols
past the goggling plesiosaurs,
the jugglers and the acrobats.

Now, the great stone steps go nowhere.
The balustraded terraces are crumbling.
Even the ashes have leached away.
But still the sphinxes watch,
and still the monsters wait.

A Crystal Palace Megalosaurus
See the sphinxes
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