Bird-watching colonels on the old sea wall,

Down here at Dawlish where the slow trains crawl:

Low tide lifting, on a shingle shore,

Long-sunk islands from the sea once more:

Red cliffs rising where the wet sands run,

Gulls reflecting in the sharp spring sun;

Pink-washed plaster by a sheltered patch,

Ilex shadows upon velvet thatch:

What interiors those names suggest!

Queen of lodgings in the warm south-west….



 

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More poems by John Betjeman: