Collected Poems

by Betjeman, John; Motion, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9780374126537
• ISBN10: 0374126534
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-11-28
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough To get it ready for the plough. The cabbages are coming now; The earth exhales. --from "Slough" When the beloved English poet John Betjeman'sCollected Poemsfirst appeared in 1958, it made publishing history, and has now sold more than two million copies to a steadily expanding readership. Betjeman is almost unique among poets in that his work appeals equally strongly to those who love poetry and to those who rarely read it. This volume, the first American edition of theCollected Poems,incorporates all the poems that Betjeman published after the originalCollected Poemsand includes a new foreword by Britain's poet laureate, Andrew Motion.

Author Biography

Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984) was one of Britain's most recognized, beloved, and bestselling poets of the last century. He was knighted in 1969 and named Poet Laureate in 1972.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xv
Andrew Motion
MOUNT ZION (1932)
Death in Leamington	1	(2)
Hymn	3	(2)
The `Varsity Students' Rag	5	(2)
The City	7	(1)
An Eighteenth-Century Calvinistic Hymn	8	(1)
For Nineteenth-Century Burials	9	(1)
Camberley	10	(1)
Croydon	11	(1)
Westgate-on-Sea	12	(2)
The Wykehamist	14	(1)
The Sandemanian Meeting-House in Highbury Quadrant	15	(1)
CONTINUAL DEW (1937)
The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel	16	(2)
Distant View of a Provincial Town	18	(2)
Slough	20	(2)
Clash went the Billiard Balls	22	(1)
Love in a Valley	23	(1)
An Impoverished Irish Peer	24	(2)
Our Padre	26	(1)
Exchange of Livings	27	(1)
Undenominational	28	(1)
City	29	(1)
A Hike on the Downs	30	(1)
Dorset	31	(1)
Calvinistic Evensong	32	(1)
Exeter	33	(2)
Death of King George V	35	(1)
The Heart of Thomas Hardy	36	(1)
Suicide on Junction Road Station after Abstention from Evening Communion in North London	37	(1)
The Flight from Bootle	38	(1)
Public House Drunk	39	(2)
OLD LIGHTS FOR NEW CHANCELS (1940)
Cheltenham	41	(1)
A Shropshire Lad	42	(2)
Upper Lambourne	44	(1)
Pot Pourri from a Surrey Garden	45	(2)
Holy Trinity, Sloane Street	47	(1)
On Seeing an Old Poet in the Cafe Royal	48	(1)
An Incident in the Early Life of Ebenezer Jones, Poet, 1828	49	(3)
Trebetherick	52	(2)
Oxford: Sudden Illness at the Bus-stop	54	(1)
Group Life: Letchworth	55	(1)
Bristol and Clifton	56	(3)
Sir John Piers	59	(10)
Myfanwy	69	(2)
Myfanwy at Oxford	71	(2)
Lake District	73	(1)
In Westminster Abbey	74	(2)
Senex	76	(2)
Olney Hymns	78	(1)
On a Portrait of a Deaf Man	79	(2)
Saint Cadoc	81	(2)
Blackfriars	83	(1)
NEW BATS IN OLD BELFRIES (1945)
Henley-on-Thames	84	(1)
Parliament Hill Fields	85	(2)
A Subaltern's Love-song	87	(2)
Bristol	89	(1)
On an Old-Fashioned Water-Colour of Oxford	90	(1)
A Lincolnshire Tale	91	(3)
St. Barnabas, Oxford	94	(1)
An Archaeological Picnic	95	(1)
May-Day Song for North Oxford	96	(1)
Before Invasion, 1940	97	(1)
Ireland with Emily	98	(2)
Margate, 1940	100	(2)
Invasion Exercise on the Poultry Farm	102	(2)
The Planster's Vision	104	(1)
In a Bath Teashop	105	(1)
Before the Anaesthetic, or A Real Fright	106	(3)
On Hearing the Full Peal of Ten Bells from Christ Church, Swindon, Wilts	109	(1)
Youth and Age on Beaulieu River, Hants	110	(2)
East Anglian Bathe	112	(1)
Sunday Afternoon Service in St. Enodoc Church, Cornwall	113	(5)
The Irish Unionist's Farewell to Greta Hellstrom in 1922	118	(2)
In Memory of Basil, Marquess of Dufferin and Ava	120	(2)
South London Sketch, 1944	122	(1)
South London Sketch, 1844	123	(1)
SELECTED POEMS (1948)
Indoor Games near Newbury	124	(2)
St. Saviour's, Aberdeen Park, Highbury, London, N.	126	(2)
Beside the Seaside	128	(7)
North Coast Recollections	135	(9)
A Lincolnshire Church	144	(1)
The Town Clerk's Views	144	(4)
A FEW LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS (1954)
Harrow-on-the-Hill	148	(1)
Verses turned	149	(3)
Sunday Morning, King's Cambridge	152	(3)
Christmas	155	(1)
The Licorice Fields at Pontefract	156	(1)
Church of England thoughts	156	(2)
Essex	158	(2)
Huxley Hall	160	(1)
House of Rest	161	(2)
Middlesex	163	(2)
Seaside Golf	165	(1)
I. M. Walter Ramsden, ob. March 26, 1947, Pembroke College, Oxford	166	(2)
Norfolk	168	(1)
The Metropolitan Railway	169	(2)
Late-Flowering Lust	171	(2)
Sun and Fun	173	(2)
Original Sin on the Sussex Coast	175	(2)
Devonshire Street W.1	177	(1)
The Cottage Hospital	178	(2)
A Child Ill	180	(1)
Business Girls	181	(1)
Remorse	182	(1)
The Old Liberals	183	(1)
Greenaway	184	(2)
The Olympic Girl	186	(1)
The Dear Old Village	187	(5)
The Village Inn	192	(3)
Station Syren	195	(2)
Hunter Trials	197	(2)
A Literary Discovery	199	(4)
How to Get On in Society	203	(1)
Variation on a Theme by T. W. Rolleston	204	(1)
POEMS IN THE PORCH (1954)
Diary of a Church Mouse	205	(3)
POEMS WRITTEN AFTER 1954
Wantage Bells	208	(1)
Winthrop Mackworth Redivivus	209	(3)
False Security	212	(2)
Eunice	214	(2)
Monody on the Death of Aldersgate Street Station	216	(2)
Thoughts on The Diary of a Nobody	218	(2)
Long fellow's Visit to Venice	220	(2)
Felixstowe, or The Last of Her Order	222	(2)
Pershore Station, or A Liverish Journey First Class	224	(1)
Hertfordshire	225	(2)
Lord Cozens Hardy	227	(2)
Variation on a Theme by Newbolt	229	(1)
Inevitable	230	(1)
N.W.5 & N.6	231	(2)
From the Great Western	233	(1)
In the Public Gardens	234	(1)
HIGH AND LOW (1966)
Preface to High and Low	235	(2)
Cornish Cliffs	237	(2)
Tregardock	239	(2)
By the Ninth Green, St. Enodoc	241	(2)
Winter Seascape	243	(2)
Old Friends	245	(2)
A Bay in Anglesey	247	(2)
A Lament for Moira McCavendish	249	(2)
The Small Towns of Ireland	251	(3)
Ireland's Own	254	(2)
Great Central Railway	256	(2)
Matlock Bath	258	(2)
An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield	260	(2)
Lines written to Martyn Skinner	262	(2)
Uffington	264	(1)
Anglo-Catholic Congresses	265	(1)
In Willesden Churchyard	266	(2)
The Commander	268	(2)
Autumn 1964	270	(1)
The Hon. Sec.	271	(2)
Monody on the Death of a Platonist Bank Clerk	273	(2)
Good-bye	275	(1)
Five o'Clock Shadow	276	(1)
A Russell Flint	277	(1)
Perp. Revival i' the North	278	(1)
Agricultural Caress	279	(1)
Narcissus	280	(2)
The Cockney Amorist	282	(2)
Harvest Hymn	284	(1)
Meditation on the A30	285	(1)
Inexpensive Progress	286	(2)
Mortality	288	(1)
Reproof Deserved	289	(2)
Caprice	291	(1)
Cricket Master	292	(4)
A NIP IN THE AIR (1974)
On Leaving Wantage 1972	296	(2)
On a Painting by Julius Olsson R.A.	298	(1)
Beaumaris, December 21, 1963	299	(2)
Hearts Together	301	(1)
Aldershot Crematorium	302	(1)
The Newest Bath Guide	303	(2)
In Memory of George Whitby, Architect	305	(1)
Delectable Duchy	306	(2)
The Costa Blanca	308	(2)
Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican	310	(2)
Executive	312	(2)
Meditation on a Constable Picture	314	(1)
A Wembley Lad	315	(1)
County	316	(3)
Greek Orthodox	319	(2)
Dilton Marsh Halt	321	(1)
Loneliness	322	(1)
Back from Australia	323	(1)
The Manor House, Hale, near Liverpool	324	(2)
Shattered Image	326	(6)
A Ballad of the Investiture 1969	332	(3)
14 November, 1973	335	(1)
A Mind's Journey to Diss	336	(1)
Fruit	337	(1)
Inland Waterway	338	(1)
For Patrick, aetat: LXX	339	(2)
The Last Laugh	341	(1)
UNCOLLECTED POEMS (1982)
1940	342	(2)
Interior Decorator (London Magazine 1964)	344	(3)
The Lift Man	347	(2)
Archibald	349	(2)
The Retired Postal Clerk	351	(1)
Cheshire	352	(1)
Advertising Pays	353	(2)
Dumbleton Hall	355	(2)
Thoughts in a Train	357	(1)
Shetland 1973	358	(1)
To the Crazy Gang	359	(2)
Kegans	361	(1)
Henley Regatta 1902	362	(1)
1930 Commercial Style	363	(2)
Guilt	365	(1)
A Romance	366	(3)
Advent 1955	369	(2)
The Old Land Dog	371	(2)
Before the Lecture	373	(2)
The Parochial Church Council	375	(4)
The Shires	379	(1)
An Ecumenical Invitation	380	(2)
The Conversion of St. Paul (The Listener 1955)	382	(3)
St. Mary Magdalen, Old Fish Street Hill	385	(1)
Woman Driver	386	(1)
The Ballad of George R. Sims (New Statesman 1968)	387	(2)
Civilized Woman	389	(1)
To Stuart Piggott, 1975	390	(2)
Chelsea 1977	392	(1)
ADDITIONAL POEMS
The Friends of the Cathedral (from Poems in the Porch, 1954)	393	(2)
The Empty Pew (1948)	395	(88)
SUMMONED BY BELLS (1960)
Before MCMXIV	399	(4)
The Dawn of Guilt	403	(10)
Highgate	413	(5)
Cornwall in Childhood	418	(8)
Private School	426	(8)
London	434	(6)
Marlborough	440	(10)
Cornwall in Adolescence	450	(11)
The Opening World	461	(22)
Index of First Lines	483	(8)
Index of Places	491