An Old Guide-Book to Prague

1.
It being my almost invariable habit
To visit a secondhand bookshop on a Saturday afternoon,
And wander among those rearranged heaps of the past,
Rearranging them myself each Saturday afternoon.

2.
And surely I can afford this little book:
This little book of photographs of a city:
Almost any city, provided I can afford it:
I shall go and ask the man what price he sets on it.

3.
Three days later, I read the back cover,
And discover that the book was published in June 1937;
Before that, it had hovered among the forties and fifties;
Suddenly all those people breathe on the other side of a war.

4.
The River Vltava is still approaching Prague;
At tables on terraces hundreds overlook it;
An approaching war is not so easily photographed;
People are moving to and from the tables.
...