The Plantster’s Vision poem – John Betjeman poems

Cut down that timber! Bells, too many and strong,

Pouring their music through the branches bare,

From moon-white church towers down the windy air

Have pealed the centuries out with Evensong.

Remove those cottages, a huddled throng!

Too many babies have been born in there,

Too many coffins, bumping down the stair,

Carried the old their garden paths along.

I have a Vision of the Future, chum,

The workers’ flats in fields of soya beans

Tower up like silver pencils, score on score:

And Surging Millions hear the Challenge come

From microphones in communal canteens

“No Right! No Wrong! All’s perfect, evermore!”

 

***

 

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
• Ireland With Emily poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Inexpensive Progress poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• In Westminster Abbey poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• How To Get On In Society poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Harrow-on-the-Hill poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Guilt poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• Felixstowe, or The Last of Her Order poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
• 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