The Irish Unionist’s farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922 poem – John Betjeman poems

Golden haired and golden hearted

I would ever have you be,

As you were when last we parted

Smiling slow and sad at me.

Oh! the fighting down of passion!

Oh! the century-seeming pain-

Parting in this off-hand fashion

In Dungarvan in the rain.

Slanting eyes of blue, unweeping

Stands my Swedish beauty where

Gusts of Irish rain are sweeping

Round the statue in the square;

Corner boys against the walling

Watch us furtively in vain,

And the Angelus is calling

Through Dungarvan in the rain.

Gales along the Commeragh Mountains,

Beating sleet on creaking signs,

Iron gutters turned to fountains,

And the windscreen laced with lines,

And the evening getting later,

And the ache; increased again,

As the distance grows the greater

From Dungarvan in the rain.

There is no one now to wonder

What eccentric sits in state

While the beech trees rock and thunder

Round his gate-lodge and his gate.

Gone; the ornamental plaster,

Gone; the overgrown demesne

And the car goes fast, and faster,

From Dungarvan in the rain.

Had I kissed and drawn you to me

Had you yielded warm for cold,

What a power had pounded through me

As I stroked your streaming gold!

You were right to keep us parted:

Bound and parted we remain,

Aching, if unbroken hearted –

Oh! Dungarvan in the rain!

 

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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
• 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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• Harrow-on-the-Hill poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Guilt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
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• Executive poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Dilton Marsh Halt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Diary of a Church Mouse poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Devonshire Street W.1 poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Death In Leamington poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Dawlish poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Cornish Cliffs poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Christmas poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Business Girls poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Back From Australia poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• A Subaltern’s Love Song poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• A Shropshire Lad poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• A Bay In Anglesey poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry