"do you remember an inn, Miranda?"

"Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?"  - Hilaire Belloc, "Tarantella"

Yes, do you remember an Inn,

Miranda,

Where chairs rocked, creaking,

On the long veranda,

Where beds were elderly

To match the plumbing

But the manager smiled at our coming?

Far from the highway where the traffic muttered,

It was clapboarded white,

It was greenly shuttered.

There peace descended

When night began

And we paid by American Plan.

Remember the lobster redder than the wine,

The breakfast dining-room

That closed at nine,

The wavy mirrors

In the first-floor Women's,

The waitresses all from Smith or Simmons

And the crickets loud

But the busboys louder

And the reek of the leek

In the weekly chowder

And the carefree luggage

That porters brought in

And the baths you could launch a yacht in?

Nevermore, Miranda, nevermore.

Only the faceless,

Duplicated door

Of a thousand Motels

From Taos to Truro

With Television built in the built-in bureau.

Only the wallpaper, self-assertive,

And the dusty coming

And the going, furtive,

And the Howard Johnson's

For a meal, en masse,

And the clink of the drink

In the toothbrush glass.

Only the guests, neither gentlemen nor ladies,

But Messieur the Buick

Or Madame, Mercedes

And the fee in advance

And the sleeping pill

For the traffic roaring at the sill.

Let me fly to an Inn like a sword to its scabbard

Where the crickets cry

And the walls are clapboard.

Till I find a rocker

On a long veranda

I'll motor no more, Miranda.

                                     -   Lament for Lost Lodgings, by Phyllis McGinley