John Betjeman

Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, architectural conservationist and broadcaster. He was the British Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984.

Poetry

• 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!
  • "Slough" line 1, from Continual Dew (1937)

• He sipped at a weak hock and seltzer
  As he gazed at the London skies
  Through the Nottingham lace of the curtains
  Or was it his bees-winged eyes?
  • "The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel" line 1, from Continual Dew

• Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans.
  Spare their women for Thy Sake,
  And if that is not too easy,
  We will pardon Thy Mistake.
  But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be,
  Don't let anyone bomb me.
  • "In Westminster Abbey" line 1, from Old Lights for New Chancels (1940)

• He would have liked to say goodbye,
  Shake hands with many friends.
  In Highgate now his finger-bones
  Stick through his finger-ends.
  
  You, God, who treat him thus and thus,
  Say, "Save his soul and pray."
  You ask me to believe You and
  I only see decay.
  • "On a Portrait of a Deaf Man" line 25, from Old Lights for New Chancels

• 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!
  • "A Subaltern's Love-song" line 1, from New Bats in Old Belfries (1945)

• We sat in the car park till twenty to one
  And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
  • "A Subaltern's Love-song" line 43

• Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
  Stony hills poured over space,
  Stony outcrop of the Burren,
  Stones in every fertile place
  • "In Ireland with Emily" from New Bats in Old Belfries

• No hope. And the X-ray photographs under his arm
  Confirm the message. His wife stands timidly by.
  The opposite brick-built house looks lofty and calm,
  Its chimneys steady against the mackerel sky.
  • "Devonshire Street W.1" line 1, from A Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954)

• And behind their frail partitions
  Business women lie and soak,
  Seeing through the draughty skylight
  Flying clouds and railway smoke.
  
  Rest you there, poor unbelov'd ones,
  Lap your loneliness in heat,
  All too soon the tiny breakfast,
  Trolley-bus and windy street!
  • "Business Girls" line 13, from A Few Late Chrysanthemums

• 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.
  
  • "The Licorice Fields at Pontefract" from A Few Late Chrysanthemums

• It's strange that those we miss the most
  Are those we take for granted.
  • "The Hon. Sec." line 39, from High and Low (1966)

• I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner;
  I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina.
  • "Executive" line 1, from A Nip in the Air (1974)

Other

• Ghastly Good Taste, or a Depressing Story of the Rise and Fall of English Architecture.
  • Title of book (1933)

• Yes, I haven't had enough sex.
  • In an interview for the television documentary Time With Betjeman (February 1983), having been asked whether he had any regrets.