Six Poets (23 page)
Authors: Alan Bennett
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
A cloudless night like this
134
A haze of thunder hangs on the hospital rose-beds
110
A shilling life will give you all the facts
123
A watched clock never moves, they said
168
About suffering they were never wrong
137
All words like Peace and Love
132
âAnd now to God the Father,' he ends
10
Annus Mirabilis
188
Arundel Tomb, An
200
As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
139
At the Draper's
23
At the Railway Station, Upway
17
Aubade
201
Autobiography
151
Autumn Journal
163
Because I liked you better
52
Because I liked you better
52
Beeny Cliff
5
Business Girls
101
But let me say before it has to go
121
Carrickfergus
148
Christmas: 1924
12
Coming up England by a different line
177
Convergence of the Twain, The
31
Crossing alone
69
Crossing alone the nighted ferry
69
Death in Leamington
87
Death of an Actress
172
Death of King George V
104
Deserter, The
54
Devonshire Street, W.1
106
Dockery and Son
185
âDockery was junior to you
185
Drummer Hodge
35
Early Electric! With what radiant hope
93
Earth, receive an honoured guest
141
Eight O'Clock
59
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
71
Eve of Waterloo, The
14
Five O'Clock Shadow
110
From the geyser ventilators
101
From the Wash
45
From the wash the laundress sends
45
Gaily into Ruislip Gardens
96
Going, Going
190
He stood and heard the steeple
59
How to Get On in Society
99
Hunter Trials
83
I am not yet born; O hear me
144
I did not lose my heart
61
I did not lose my heart in summer's even
61
I looked up from my writing
29
I Looked Up from My Writing
29
I Remember, I Remember
175
I see from the paper that Florrie Forde is dead
172
I shouldn't dance
119
I sit in one of the dives
126
âI stood at the back of the shop, my dear
23
I thought it would last my time
190
I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries
147
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night
203
In a Bath Teashop
108
In a solitude of the sea
31
In Church
10
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
141
In my childhood trees were green
151
In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy
19
Into my heart an air that kills
73
âIs my team ploughing
75
It's awf'lly bad luck on Diana
83
Last Words to a Dumb Friend
25
Les Sylphides
160
âLet us not speak, for the love we bear one another
108
Letter to Lord Byron
121
Life in a day: he took his girl to the ballet
160
Look, stranger, on this island now
113
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
66
Maiden Name
183
Marrying left your maiden name disused
183
MCMXIV
194
Metropolitan Railway, The
93
Middlesex
96
Midnight on the Great Western
19
Musée des Beaux Arts
137
N.W.5 and N.6
90
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea
5
O What Is That Sound
116
O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
116
Oh who is that young sinner
57
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists
57
On This Island
113
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble
41
âPeace upon earth!' was said. We sing it
12
Pet was never mourned as you
25
Phone for the fish-knives, Norman
99
Portion of this yew
8
Prayer before Birth
145
Proud Songsters
37
Red cliffs arise. And up them service lifts
90
September 1, 1939
126
Sexual intercourse began
188
Shake Hands
50
Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all's over
50
She died in the upstairs bedroom
87
Shropshire Lad, A
41
,
47
,
66
,
73
,
75
Side by side, their faces blurred 1200
Slow Starter, The
168
Spirits of well-shot woodcock, partridge, snipe
104
Tell me not here
63
Tell me not here, it needs not saying
63
The eyelids of eve fall together at last
14
The heavy mahogany door with its wrought-iron screen
106
The next day I drove by night
163
The thrushes sing as the sun is going
37
The time you won your town the race
47
The trees are coming into leaf
206
Their Lonely Betters
139
âThere is not much that I can do
17
These, in the day when heaven was falling
71
They fuck you up, your mum and dad
178
They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
35
This Be The Verse
180
Those long uneven lines
194
To Posterity
170
Toads Revisited
197
Transformations
8
Trees, The
206
Trilogy for X
155
Walk After Dark, A
134
Walking around in the park
197
We Too Had Known Golden Hours
132
âWhat sound awakened me, I wonder
54
When books have all seized up like the books in graveyards
170
When clerks and navvies fondle
155
When summer's end is nighing
78
When summer's end is nighing
78
Whitewashed Wall, The
21
Witnesses, The
119
Who's Who
123
Why does she turn in that shy soft way
21
Zoo
158
The publishers gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint copyright material in this book as follows:
Poems by John Betjeman taken from
Collected Poems
(John Murray, 2006) © John Betjeman by permission of The Estate of John Betjeman
Poems by W. H. Auden taken from
Collected Poems
, edited by Edward Mendelson (Faber and Faber Ltd, 2007) © The Estate of W. H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd
Poems by Louis MacNeice © Louis MacNeice, taken from
Collected Poems
, edited by Peter McDonald (Faber and Faber Ltd, 2007) by permission of David Higham Associates, London
Poems by Philip Larkin taken from
The Complete Poems
edited by Archie Burnett (Faber and Faber Ltd, 2012) © The Estate of Philip Larkin