Cornhill, M and S, John Clare, Captain Swing and Stroud Farmers' Market

If you build a Marks and Spencer,

Springs might rise up from the pavement,

Drown Cornhill’s imagination,

Drive ditches through your anxious brow.

If you build a Marks and Spencer,

Captain Swing will wander through your dreams,

Destroy your threshing machines,

Stretch your nightmares out on tenterhooks,

Turn your eyes a sleepless Stroud Scarlet.

If you build a Marks and Spencer

And talk of modernization and consumer choice,

Then don’t be surprised if Stroud’s Genius Loci

Boycotts a misplaced innovation,

And remembers Karl Marx rather than Herbert Spencer.

If you build a Marks and Spencer

Grass will grow in your pockets,

Celandine in your bank vaults,

Weeds in your account books.

But if you leave things as they are,

Then money will rain upon your heads,

Goodness will grow within your heart,

Generosity within your soul,

And John Clare will write you a poem from the grave.