Deadly on the Breeze

With apologies to Housman 

              Deadly on the breeze the pollen now

              Blows in my face from every bough,

              Swelling eyes and nostrils wide,

              Burning them red at eventide.

 

              Of my three-score snorts and ten

              Hundreds always come again

              To make my coughing twenty score

              And give me fifty sneezes more.

 

              And so to hide from thugs in bloom

              I haunt my air-conditioned room.

              About each window I will go

              To see the spring and bear the woe.