Sir John Betjeman

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

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,

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

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

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

The clock is frozen in the tower,
The thickening fog with sooty
Has blanketed the motor
Which turns the London streets to hell;

She died in the upstairs
By the light of the ev'ning
That shone through the plate glass
From over Leamington

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

The sleepy sound of a tea-time
Slaps at the rocks the sun has dried,
Too lazy, almost, to sink and
Round low peninsulas pink with thrift

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
No hope

I remember the dread with which I at a quarter past
Let go with a bang behind me our house front
And, clutching a present for my dear little hostess tight,
Sailed out for the children's party into the