Sir John Betjeman

Cut down that timber
Bells, too many and strong,
Pouring their music through the branches bare,
From moon-white church-towers down the windy

Golden haired and golden heartedI would ever have you be,
As you were when last we
Smiling slow and sad at me
Oh

Bells are booming down the bohreens,
White the mist along the grass,
Now the Julias,
Maeves and

When melancholy Autumn comes to
And electric trains are lighted after
The poplars near the stadium are
With their tap and tap and whispering to me,

Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looksI nibble through old service books
Lean and alone I spend my

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
Soap scented fingers I long to caress

From Bermondsey to
So many churches are,
Some with apsidal chancels,
Some

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

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

The sea runs back against
With scarcely time for breaking
To cannonade a slatey
And thunder under in a cave

We used to picnic where the
Grew deep and tufted to the edge;
We saw the yellow foam flakes
In trembling sponges on the

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

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

With one consuming roar along the
The long wave claws and rakes the pebbles
To where its backwash and the next wave mingle,
A mounting arch of water

Phone for the fish knives,
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the
And I must have things daintily served

Gaily into Ruislip
Runs the red electric train,
With a thousand Ta's and
Daintily alights Elaine;