All Poems

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Senex

© John Betjeman

Oh would I could subdue the flesh
Which sadly troubles me!
And then perhaps could view the flesh
As though I never knew the flesh
And merry misery.

This is the time of day when we in the Mens's ward
Think "one more surge of the pain and I give up the fight."
Whe he who strggles for breath can struggle less strongly:
This is the time of day which is worse than night.

Devonshire Street W.1

© John Betjeman

The heavy mahogany door with its wrought-iron screen
Shuts. And the sound is rich, sympathetic, discreet.
The sun still shines on this eighteenth-century scene
With Edwardian faience adornment -- Devonshire Street.

Executive

© John Betjeman

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 ma?tres d'h?tel all know me well, and let me sign the bill.

The Olympic Girl

© John Betjeman

The sort of girl I like to see
Smiles down from her great height at me.
She stands in strong, athletic pose
And wrinkles her retrouss? nose.

Inexpensive Progress

© John Betjeman

Encase your legs in nylons,
Bestride your hills with pylons
O age without a soul;
Away with gentle willows
And all the elmy billows
That through your valleys roll.

Harrow-on-the-Hill

© John Betjeman

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,

Mortality

© John Betjeman

The first-class brains of a senior civil servant
Shiver and shatter and fall
As the steering column of his comfortable Humber
Batters in the bony wall.

In A Bath Teashop

© John Betjeman

"Let us not speak, for the love we bear one another
Let us hold hands and look."
She such a very ordinary little woman;
He such a thumping crook;
But both, for a moment, little lower than the angels
In the teashop's ingle-nook.

A Shropshire Lad

© John Betjeman

The gas was on in the Institute,
The flare was up in the gym,
A man was running a mineral line,
A lass was singing a hymn,

Sun and Fun

© John Betjeman

I walked into the night-club in the morning;
There was kummel on the handle of the door.
The ashtrays were unemptied.
The cleaning unattempted,
And a squashed tomato sandwich on the floor.

Meditation on the A30

© John Betjeman

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

Guilt

© John Betjeman

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.

Business Girls

© John Betjeman

From the geyser ventilators
Autumn winds are blowing down
On a thousand business women
Having baths in Camden Town

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.

Loneliness

The last year's leaves are on the beech:
The twigs are black; the cold is dry;
To deeps byond the deepest reach
The Easter bells enlarge the sky.

Slough

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

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!

The Last Laugh

I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold.

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