Вывешиваю сатирическую поэму Толкиена, описывающую превращение английского городка в скотоподобных буржуев, загадивших природу своим потреблядством.

Сатирическая поэма Дж.Р. "Progress in Bimble Town" была впервые издана в Oxford Magazine Vol. 50 No.1 от 15 октября 1931 года, на странице 22:
Progress in Bimble Town.
(Dedicated to the Mayor and Corporation.)
Bimble-bay has a steep street:
it runs down with many houses,
tall ones, short ones; shops with meat,
shops with cabbages, shops with blouses,
jersies, jumpers and umbrellas;
a post-office (new and squalid);
a library filled with best-sellers
in yellow jackets; an old, solid,
manywindowed inn where motors
make strong smells, and no horse goes
in cobbled yard; a place where bloaters
from wooden boxes lie in rows
(brought by train for sea-side air);
a pharmacy with sunburn-lotion
and picture-cards (of Godknowswhere,
and fat women dipped in ocean);
a toy bazaar with things of tin,
and bits of crock, and all the news;
windows, windows with chocolates in,
cigarettes, and gum one chews
(wrapped in paper, cased in card,
For folk to strew on grass and shore);
loud garages, where toiling hard
grimy people band and roar,
and engines buzz, and the lights flare,
all night long – a merry noise!
Sometimes through it (this is rare)
one can hear the shouts of boys;
sometimes late, when motor-bikes
are not passing with a screech,
one hears faintly (if one likes)
the sea still at it on the beach.
at what? At churning orange-rind,
piling up banana-skins,
gnawing paper, trying to grind
a broth of bottles, packets, tins,
before a new day comes with more,
before next morning’s charabangs,
stopping at the old inn-door
with reek and rumble, hoots and clangs,
bring more folk to Godknowswhere
and Theydontcare, to Bimble Town
where the steep street, that once was fair,
with many houses staggers down,
See Britain First!
(K. Bagpuize – псевдоним Дж.Р.)

Позднее эту версию поэмы переиздавали в Tolkien and the Spirit of the Age (1987 год) и The Annotated Hobbit (см. стр. 253: прим. 8 к Главе 10).

Почему "версия"? дело в том, что существует длинная версия поэмы – из 122 строк – никогда полностью не публиковавшаяся (собственно начальные 44 строки из поэмы и были опубликованы).