Harrow-on-the-Hill poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry

When melancholy Autumn comes to Wembley

And electric trains are lighted after tea

The poplars near the stadium are trembly

With their tap and tap and whispering to me,

Like the sound of little breakers

Spreading out along the surf-line

When the estuary’s filling

With the sea.

Then Harrow-on-the-Hill’s a rocky island

And Harrow churchyard full of sailor’s graves

And the constant click and kissing of the trolley buses hissing

Is the level of the Wealdstone turned to waves

And the rumble of the railway

Is the thunder of the rollers

As they gather for the plunging

Into caves

There’s a storm cloud to the westward over Kenton,

There’s a line of harbour lights at Perivale,

Is it rounding rough Pentire in a flood of sunset fire

The little fleet of trawlers under sail?

Can those boats be only roof tops

As they stream along the skyline

In a race for port and Padstow

With the gale?

 

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More poems by John Betjeman:

• Winter Seascape poem – John Betjeman poems
• Winter Landscape poem – John Betjeman poems
• Westgate-On-Sea poem – John Betjeman poems
• Verses Turned… poem – John Betjeman poems
• Upper Lambourne poem – John Betjeman poems
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• The Olympic Girl poem – John Betjeman poems
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• The Last Laugh poem – John Betjeman poems
• The Irish Unionist’s farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922 poem – John Betjeman poems
• The Hon. Sec. poem – John Betjeman poems
• The Cottage Hospital poem – John Betjeman poems
• Sun and Fun poem – John Betjeman poems
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• On a Portrait of a Deaf Man poem – John Betjeman poems
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• Mortality poem – John Betjeman poems
• Middlesex poem – John Betjeman poems
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