I met a traveller from an antique shop
Who sold me a teak Georgian fire surround
That, when I scratched it later with my car keys
Proved to be of plywood, stained in tea
And bought last week from Homebase, out of town.
This shows that bastard well our passions knows,
How gulled we are by snobbery & greed
We’ll buy his pedestals and old commodes,
Even two vast and trunkless elephants:
“You’ve got osteoarthritis, your poor things:
Just buy my works, all righty? (then despair). ”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of this colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level shires stretch far away.