The Olympic Girl
The sort of girl I like to
Smiles down from her great height at me.
She stands in strong, athletic
And wrinkles her retroussé nose.
Is it distaste that makes her frown,
So furious and freckled,
On an unhealthy worm like me?
Or am I what she likes to see?
I do not know, though much I care,xxxxxxxx…..would I were(Forgive me, shade of Rupert Brooke)An object fit to claim her look.
Oh! would I were her racket
With hard excitement to her
And swished into the sunlit
Arm-high above her tousled hair,
And banged against the bounding ball"Oh!
Plung!" my tauten'd strings would call,"Oh!
Plung! my darling, break my
For you I will do brilliant things."And when the match is over,
Would flop beside you, hear you sigh;
And then with what supreme caress,
You'd tuck me up into my press.
Fair tigress of the tennis courts,
So short in sleeve and strong in shorts,
Little, alas, to you I mean,
For I am bald and old and green.
Sir John Betjeman
Other author posts
The Licorice Fields At Pontefract
In the licorice fields at My love and I did And many a burdened licorice Was blooming round our feet;
Dilton Marsh Halt
Was it worth keeping the Halt open, We thought as we looked at the Red through the spread of the cedar-tree, With the evening train gone by
Meditation On The A30
A man on his own in a Is revenging himself on his wife; He open the throttle and bubbles with And puffs at his pitiful
Mortality
The first-class brains of a senior civil Shiver and shatter and As the steering column of his comfortable Batters in the bony wall
