6 FEBRUARY 1953, Page 12

Vienna

The khaki soldier loitering in the street yeplaces Baedeker's light-hearted crowd, The squares are paved with memories of defeat, Nostalgia fills the opera like a cloud. The ghost of cities postulates a march To where the stucco peels from palace walls And baroque cherubim above the arch Simper as the plaster snow-flake falls.

A bank-clerk in his Tyrolean hat Perennially coming home from work Fumbles with a massive court-yard door (A vaulted entrance means a draughty flat). And here the Polack overthrew the Turk, And none of it can happen any more.

ANTHONY HARTLEY.