Middlesex poem – John Betjeman poems

Gaily into Ruislip Gardens

Runs the red electric train,

With a thousand Ta’s and Pardon’s

Daintily alights Elaine;

Hurries down the concrete station

With a frown of concentration,

Out into the outskirt’s edges

Where a few surviving hedges

Keep alive our lost Elysium; rural Middlesex again.

Well cut Windsmoor flapping lightly,

Jacqmar scarf of mauve and green

Hiding hair which, Friday nightly,

Delicately drowns in Dreen;

Fair Elaine the bobby-soxer,

Fresh-complexioned with Innoxa,

Gains the garden; father’s hobby –

Hangs her Windsmoor in the lobby,

Settles down to sandwich supper and the television screen.

Gentle Brent, I used to know you

Wandering Wembley-wards at will,

Now what change your waters show you

In the meadowlands you fill!

Recollect the elm-trees misty

And the footpaths climbing twisty

Under cedar-shaded palings,

Low laburnum-leaned-on railings

Out of Northolt on and upward to the heights of Harrow hill.

Parish of enormous hayfields

Perivale stood all alone,

And from Greenford scent of mayfields

Most enticingly was blown

Over market gardens tidy,

Taverns for the bona fide,

Cockney singers, cockney shooters,

Murray Poshes, Lupin Pooters,

Long in Kelsal Green and Highgate silent under soot and stone.

 

***

 

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
• Trebetherick poem – John Betjeman poems
• The Plantster’s Vision poem – John Betjeman poems
• The Olympic Girl poem – John Betjeman poems
• The Licorice Fields at Pontefract poem – John Betjeman poems
• 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
• South London Sketch poem – John Betjeman poems
• Slough poem – John Betjeman poems
• Senex poem – John Betjeman poems
• Seaside Golf poem – John Betjeman poems
• On a Portrait of a Deaf Man poem – John Betjeman poems
• Myfanwy poem – John Betjeman poems
• Mortality poem – John Betjeman poems
• Middlesex poem – John Betjeman poems
• Meditation on the A30 poem – John Betjeman poems
• Loneliness poem – John Betjeman poems
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