This week: John Betjeman Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady
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Loneliness
by John Betjeman
The last year's leaves are on the beech:
The twigs are black; the cold is dry;
To deeps byond the deepest reach
The Easter bells enlarge the sky.
O ordered metal clatter-clang!
Is yours the song the angels sang?
You fill my heart with joy and grief -
Belief! Belief! And unbelief...
And, though you tell me I shall die,
You say not how or when or why.
Indifferent the finches sing,
Unheeding roll the lorries past:
What misery will this year bring
Now spring is in the air at last?
For, sure as blackthorn bursts to snow,
Cancer in some of us will grow,
The tasteful crematorium door
Shuts out for some the furnace roar;
But church-bells open on the blast
Our loneliness, so long and vast.
Guilt
by John Betjeman
The clock is frozen in the tower,
The thickening fog with sooty smell
Has blanketed the motor power
Which turns the London streets to hell;
And footsteps with their lonely sound
Intensify the silence round.
I haven't hope. I haven't faith.
I live two lives and sometimes three.
The lives I live make life a death
For those who have to live with me.
Knowing the virtues that I lack,
I pat myself upon the back.
With breastplate of self-righteousness
And shoes of smugness on my feet,
Before the urge in me grows less
I hurry off to make retreat.
For somewhere, somewhere, burns a light
To lead me out into the night.
It glitters icy, thin and plain,
And leads me down to Waterloo-
Into a warm electric train
Which travels sorry Surrey through
And crystal-hung, the clumps of pine
Stand deadly still beside the line.
On August 28th, 1906, near Highgate, London, Ernest Betjemann and his wife Mabel welcomed son John Betjeman into their family. Ernest Betjemann was a cabinet maker and owned his business which had been in the family for generations. Betjeman was an only child. He had a fairly lonely childhood. He found comfort in his teddy bear, Archibald, which later became inspiration for his children's story, Archie and the Strict Baptist.
Betjeman attended school in Highgate up until age eleven when he became a boarder at Dragon School, Oxford. At fifteen he went to Marlborough College where he was again a boarder. Betjeman spent holidays in Trebetherick in Cornwell, where his father owned several properties. Betjeman seemed to be the happiest on these trips. They were the inspiration for many of his poems. Betjeman changed his family name from Betjemann with two 'n's to Betjeman with one 'n' to name it less German.
Betjeman went to college in 1925. He attended Magdalen College in Oxford but found life too distractful to finish his college degree. He went on to be a teacher at Thorpe House School, Gerrard's Cross. Then worked as a private secretary for a while before going back to teaching. Betjeman became an assistant editor of The Architectural Review in 1930. His first volume of poetry, Mount Zion was published in 1931. Shortly after his publication he met Penelope Chetwode, the two were soon married even though her father disapproved.
Betjeman's second volume was Ghastly Good Taste, published in 1934. That same year Betjeman and his wife Penelope moved to Uffington in Berkshire. Betjeman took a job as a film critic for the Evening Standard. He continued writing his poetry during this time and his next collection for poetry Continual Dew, was published in 1937. He then started a series of Shell Guides to the countries of England. He continued to produce several publications throughout the 1940's. Betjeman spent a couple of years in Dublin as Press Officer to the British Representative. Betjeman's daughter Candida was born in 1942. He returned to England in 1943 to work in the Ministry of Information.
Betjeman moved his family to Wantage in 1951. A Few Late Chrysanthemums was published in 1952. By the mid 1950's Betjeman was a well-known figure. He made both radio and television appearances. His main campaign focused on Architecture and threatened buildings. Collected Poems was published in 1958, was a best seller. He continued with his broadcasting career throughout the 60's and 70's.
Betjeman was knighted in 1969 and was made Poet Laureate after Ceci, Day Lewis' death in 1972. His last volume of poetry, A Nip in the Air, was published in 1974. He was then diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. Over the next ten years Betjeman suffered a series of strokes that reduced his mobility.
John Betjeman died at home in Trebetherick, on May 19th 1984. He was buried near by in St. Enodoc Church.
Ireland With Emily
by John Betjeman
Bells are booming down the bohreens,
White the mist along the grass,
Now the Julias, Maeves and Maureens
Move between the fields to Mass.
Twisted trees of small green apple
Guard the decent whitewashed chapel,
Gilded gates and doorway grained,
Pointed windows richly stained
With many-coloured Munich glass.
See the black-shawled congregations
On the broidered vestment gaze
Murmer past the painted stations
As Thy Sacred Heart displays
Lush Kildare of scented meadows,
Roscommon, thin in ash-tree shadows,
And Westmeath the lake-reflected,
Spreading Leix the hill-protected,
Kneeling all in silver haze?
In yews and woodbine, walls and guelder,
Nettle-deep the faithful rest,
Winding leagues of flowering elder,
Sycamore with ivy dressed,
Ruins in demesnes deserted,
Bog-surrounded bramble-skirted -
Townlands rich or townlands mean as
These, oh, counties of them screen us
In the Kingdom of the West.
Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe's stone age race.
Has it held, the warm June weather?
Draining shallow sea-pools dry,
When we bicycled together
Down the bohreens fuchsia-high.
Till there rose, abrupt and lonely,
A ruined abbey, chancel only,
Lichen-crusted, time-befriended,
Soared the arches, splayed and splendid,
Romanesque against the sky.
There in pinnacled protection,
One extinguished family waits
A Church of Ireland resurrection
By the broken, rusty gates.
Sheepswool, straw and droppings cover,
Graves of spinster, rake and lover,
Whose fantastic mausoleum,
Sings its own seablown Te Deum,
In and out the slipping slates.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winner of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] is:
"Ocean of Pain"
Ocean of Pain
Waves are crashing on the sand
as I walk toward the lighthouse.
The vista is both dark and vast,
low, o’er a distant boathouse.
A seagull screams and soars right by.
Gray clouds predict a stormy sky.
The ocean’s power makes me sigh --
all joy is now in short supply.
While wandr’ing on the beach once more,
today, the sky reflects my gloom.
Now that my love has gone away,
this life is nothing but a tomb.
I hope the storm will cleanse my heart,
a chance to make a fresh new start.
He left and tore my world apart.
Oh, Sea, new dreams to me impart!
Honorable mention:
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Poetry: August 12, 2020 Issue [#10318]
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