Poems by Sir John Betjeman

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Norfolk

How did the Devil come? When first attack?

These Norfolk lanes recall lost innocence,

The years fall off and find me walking back

Dragging a stick along the wooden fence

Down this same path, where, forty years ago,

My father strolled behind me, calm and slow.

I used to fill my hands with sorrel seeds

And shower him with them from the tops of stiles,

by Sir John Betjeman

IM Walter Ramsden OB March 26, 1947, Pembroke College, Oxford

Dr Ramsden cannot read The Times obituary to-day

He’s dead.

Let monographs on silk worms by other people be

Thrown away

Unread

For he who best could understand and criticize them, he

Lies clay

In bed.

by Sir John Betjeman

Indoor Games near Newbury

In among the silver birches,

Winding ways of tarmac wander

And the signs to Bussock Bottom,

Tussock Wood and Windy Break.

Gabled lodges, tile-hung churches

Catch the lights of our Lagonda

As we drive to Wendy’s party,

Lemon curd and Christmas cake

by Sir John Betjeman

Summoned by Bells (excerpt)

Walking from school is a consummate art:

Which route to follow to avoid the gangs,

Which paths to find that lead, circuitous,

To leafy squirrel haunts and plopping ponds,

For dreams of Archibald and Tiger Tim;

Which hiding place is safe, and when it is;

What time to leave to dodge the enemy.

I only once was trapped. I knew the trap -

by Sir John Betjeman

The Irish Unionist's Farewell To Greta Hellastrom In 1922

Golden haired and golden hearted

I would ever have you be,

As you were when last we parted

Smiling slow and sad at me.

Oh! the fighting down of passion!

Oh! the century-seeming pain-

Parting in this off-hand fashion

In Dungarvan in the rain.

by Sir John Betjeman

Verses Turned

Across the wet November night

The church is bright with candlelight

And waiting Evensong.

A single bell with plaintive strokes

Pleads louder than the stirring oaks

The leafless lanes along.

It calls the choirboys from their tea

And villagers, the two or three,

by Sir John Betjeman

The Hon Sec

The flag that hung half-mast today

Seemed animate with being

As if it knew for who it flew

And will no more be seeing.

He loved each corner of the links-

The stream at the eleventh,

The grey-green bents, the pale sea-pinks,

The prospect from the seventh;

by Sir John Betjeman

South London Sketch

From Bermondsey to Wandsworth

So many churches are,

Some with apsidal chancels,

Some Perpendicular

And schools by E.R. Robson

In the style of Norman Shaw

Where blue-serged adolescence learn'd

To model and to draw.

by Sir John Betjeman

Dilton Marsh Halt

Was it worth keeping the Halt open,

We thought as we looked at the sky

Red through the spread of the cedar-tree,

With the evening train gone by?

Yes, we said, for in summer the anglers use it,

Two and sometimes three

Will bring their catches of rods and poles and perches

To Westbury, home for tea.

by Sir John Betjeman

Lenten Thoughts Of A High Anglican

Isn't she lovely, "the Mistress"?

With her wide-apart grey-green eyes,

The droop of her lips and, when she smiles,

Her glance of amused surprise?

How nonchalantly she wears her clothes,

How expensive they are as well!

And the sound of her voice is as soft and deep

As the Christ Church tenor bell.

by Sir John Betjeman

Guilt

The clock is frozen in the tower,

The thickening fog with sooty smell

Has blanketed the motor power

Which turns the London streets to hell;

And footsteps with their lonely sound

Intensify the silence round.

I haven't hope. I haven't faith.

I live two lives and sometimes three.

by Sir John Betjeman

Dawlish

Bird-watching colonels on the old sea wall,

Down here at Dawlish where the slow trains crawl:

Low tide lifting, on a shingle shore,

Long-sunk islands from the sea once more:

Red cliffs rising where the wet sands run,

Gulls reflecting in the sharp spring sun;

Pink-washed plaster by a sheltered patch,

Ilex shadows upon velvet thatch:

by Sir John Betjeman