John Betjeman

""I think the mystery of its winding drive gave me a respect for the system of hereditary land owing which I have never shaken off. (Rawsden Manor Wilts.)"

"The test of an abstract picture, for me, is not my first reaction to it, but how long I can stand it hanging on the wall of a room where I am living."

"It was through looking at churches that I came to believe in the reason churches were built."

"History must not be written with bias, and both sides must be given, even if there is only one side."

"Hymns are the poetry of the people."

"There are two things you need for a jolly good hymn. The first is a set of words that expresses the mood or sentiment of the worshipper. The second—and perhaps even more important—is a good tune ... with a simple popular melody."

"Hymn tunes are the nearest we've got to English folk music."

"One mark of good verse is surprise."

"Topography is one of my chief themes in my poetry...about the country, the suburbs and the seaside...then there comes love...and increasingly, the fear of death."

"I ought to warn you that my verse is of no interest to people who can think."

"Ghastly Good Taste, or a Depressing Story of the Rise and Fall of English Architecture."

"Saint Pancras was a fourteen-year old Christian boy who was martyred in Rome in AD 304 by the Emperor Diocletian. In England he is better known as a railway station."

"All I can say is that with age I find myself enjoying more and more the words and rhythms of the Book of Common Prayer. Apart from their meaning, they sound right and they are not talking down to us by being matey, and where they're a bit vague and archaic, that makes them grand and historic. The words give me time to meditate and pray; they are so familiar, they are like my birthplace, and I don't want them pulled down. We are all of us preservationists who have had the luck to come out of the womb and with all our faculties."

"Yes, I haven't had enough sex."

"Christmas and Easter may be feasts For congregations and for priests, And so may Whitsun. All the same, They do not fill my meagre frame. For me the only feast at all Is Autumn’s Harvest Festival."

"A large and most unfriendly rat Comes in to see what we are at. He says he thinks there is no God And yet he comes... it’s rather odd."

"A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I Am too papistical, and High."

"Within the human world I know Such goings-on could not be so, For human beings only do What their religion tells them to. [...] But all the same it’s strange to me How very full the church can be With people I don’t see at all Except at Harvest Festival."

"Safe were those evenings of the pre-war world When firelight shone on green linoleum, I heard the church bells hollowing out the sky, Deep beyond deep, like never-ending stars."

"The dread of beatings! Dread of being late! And, greatest dread of all, the dread of games!"

"It's strange that those we miss the most Are those we take for granted."

"I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner; I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina."

"Sing on, with hymns uproarious, Ye humble and aloof, Look up! and oh how glorious He has restored the roof!"

"The Church’s Restoration In eighteen-eighty-three Has left for contemplation Not what there used to be."

"Oh! Chintzy, Chintzy cheeriness, Half dead and half alive!"

"Broad of Church and ‘broad of Mind’, Broad before and broad behind, A keen ecclesiologist, A rather dirty Wykehamist."

"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!"

"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? He rose, and he put down The Yellow Book. He staggered—and, terrible-eyed, He brushed past the palms on the staircase And was helped to a hansom outside."

"Spirits of well-shot woodcock, partridge, snipe Flutter and bear him up the Norfolk sky."

"Old men in country houses hear clocks ticking Over thick carpets with a deadened force."

"Old men who never cheated, never doubted, Communicated monthly, sit and stare At the new suburb stretched beyond the run-way Where a young man lands hatless from the air."

"Whist upon whist upon whist upon whist drive, in Institute, Legion and Social Club. Horny hands that hold the aces which this morning held the plough."

"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."

"Think of what our Nation stands for, Books from Boots and country lanes, Free speech, free passes, class distinction, Democracy and proper drains. Lord, put beneath Thy special care One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square."

"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."

"Pam, I adore you, Pam, you great big mountainous sports girl, Whizzing them over the net, full of the strength of five: That old Malvernian brother, you zephyr and khaki shorts girl, Although he’s playing for Woking, can’t stand up to your wonderful backhand drive."

"The gas was on in the Institute, The flare was up in the gymn, A man was running a mineral line, A lass was singing a hymn, When Captain Webb the Dawley man, Captain Webb from Dawley, Came swimming along in the old canal That carries the bricks to Lawley."

"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!"

"We sat in the car park till twenty to one And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn."

"Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy, The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy, With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won, I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won. The warm-handled racket is back in its press, But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less."

"By roads ‘not adopted’, by woodlanded ways, She drove to the club in the late summer haze, Into nine-o’clock Camberley, heavy with bells And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, I can hear from the car-park the dance has begun. Oh! full Surrey twilight! importunate band! Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl’s hand!"

"Stony seaboard, far and foreign, Stony hills poured over space, Stony outcrop of the Burren, Stones in every fertile place."

"Oh shall I see the Thames again? The prow-promoted gems again, As beefy ATS Without their hats Come shooting through the bridge? And "cheerioh" and "cheeri-bye" Across the waste of waters die, And low the mists of evening lie And lightly skims the midge."

"Belbroughton Road is bonny, and pinkly bursts the spray Of prunus and forsythia across the public way, For a full spring-tide of blossom seethed and departed hence, Leaving land-locked pools of jonquils by sunny garden fence.And a constant sound of flushing runneth from windows whereThe toothbrush too is airing in this new North Oxford air."

"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."

"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!"

"But I'm dying now and done for, What on earth was all the fun for? I am ill and old and terrified and tight."

"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."

"And girls in slacks remember Dad, And oafish louts remember Mum, And sleepless children’s hearts are glad, And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’ Even to shining ones who dwell Safe in the Dorchester Hotel. And is it true? And is it true, This most tremendous tale of all, Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue, A Baby in an ox’s stall? The Maker of the stars and sea Become a Child on earth for me?"

"No love that in a family dwells, No carolling in frosty air, Nor all the steeple-shaking bells Can with this single Truth compare— That God was man in Palestine And lives to-day in Bread and Wine."