Sir John Betjeman: Всі вірші поета

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Executive

I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner;

I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina.

In every roadside hostelry from here to Burgess Hill

The maîtres d'hôtel all know me well, and let me sign the bill.

You ask me what it is I do. Well, actually, you know,

I'm partly a liaison man, and partly P.R.O.

Essentially, I integrate the current export drive

And basically I'm viable from ten o'clock till five.

by Sir John Betjeman

Death In Leamington

She died in the upstairs bedroom

By the light of the ev'ning star

That shone through the plate glass window

From over Leamington Spa

Beside her the lonely crochet

Lay patiently and unstirred,

But the fingers that would have work'd it

Were dead as the spoken word.

by Sir John Betjeman

False Security

I remember the dread with which I at a quarter past four

Let go with a bang behind me our house front door

And, clutching a present for my dear little hostess tight,

Sailed out for the children's party into the night

Or rather the gathering night. For still some boys

In the near municipal acres were making a noise

Shuffling in fallen leaves and shouting and whistling

And running past hedges of hawthorn, spiky and bristling.

by Sir John Betjeman

The Planster's Vision

Cut down that timber! Bells, too many and strong,

Pouring their music through the branches bare,

From moon-white church-towers down the windy air

Have pealed the centuries out with Evensong.

Remove those cottages, a huddled throng!

Too many babies have been born in there,

Too many coffins, bumping down the stair,

Carried the old their garden paths along.

by Sir John Betjeman

Meditation On The A30

A man on his own in a car

Is revenging himself on his wife;

He open the throttle and bubbles with dottle

And puffs at his pitiful life

She's losing her looks very fast,

She loses her temper all day;

That lorry won't let me get past,

This Mini is blocking my way.

by Sir John Betjeman

Trebetherick

We used to picnic where the thrift

Grew deep and tufted to the edge;

We saw the yellow foam flakes drift

In trembling sponges on the ledge

Below us, till the wind would lift

Them up the cliff and o’er the hedge.

Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea,

Sun on our bathing dresses heavy with the wet,

by Sir John Betjeman

Harrow-On-The-Hill

When melancholy Autumn comes to Wembley

And electric trains are lighted after tea

The poplars near the stadium are trembly

With their tap and tap and whispering to me,

Like the sound of little breakers

Spreading out along the surf-line

When the estuary's filling

With the sea.

by Sir John Betjeman

Myfanwy

Kind o’er the kinderbank leans my Myfanwy,

White o’er the playpen the sheen of her dress,

Fresh from the bathroom and soft in the nursery

Soap scented fingers I long to caress.

Were you a prefect and head of your dormit'ry?

Were you a hockey girl, tennis or gym?

Who was your favourite? Who had a crush on you?

Which were the baths where they taught you to swim?

by Sir John Betjeman

Seaside Golf

How straight it flew, how long it flew,

It clear'd the rutty track

And soaring, disappeared from view

Beyond the bunker's back -

A glorious, sailing, bounding drive

That made me glad I was alive.

And down the fairway, far along

It glowed a lonely white;

by Sir John Betjeman

A Subaltern's Love Song

Miss J.Hunter Dunn, Miss J.Hunter Dunn,

Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,

What strenuous singles we played after tea,

We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,

The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,

With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,

I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn

by Sir John Betjeman

Five O'Clock Shadow

This is the time of day when we in the Men's ward

Think "one more surge of the pain and I give up the fight."

When he who struggles for breath can struggle less strongly:

This is the time of day which is worse than night.

A haze of thunder hangs on the hospital rose-beds,

A doctors' foursome out on the links is played,

Safe in her sitting-room Sister is putting her feet up:

This is the time of day when we feel betrayed.

by Sir John Betjeman

The Licorice Fields At Pontefract

$The Licorice Fields At Pontefract$

In the licorice fields at Pontefract

My love and I did meet

And many a burdened licorice bush

Was blooming round our feet;

Red hair she had and golden skin,

Her sulky lips were shaped for sin,

Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd

The strongest legs in Pontefract.

by Sir John Betjeman