Home ⇒ 📌John Betjeman ⇒ The Plantster's Vision
The Plantster's Vision
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!”
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- My Vision Wherever my feet may wander Wherever I chance to be, There comes, with the coming of even’ time A vision sweet to me. I see my mother sitting In the old familiar place, And she rocks to the tune her needles sing, And thinks of an absent face. I can hear the roar of the […]...
- Halsted Street Car COME you, cartoonists, Hang on a strap with me here At seven o’clock in the morning On a Halsted street car. Take your pencils And draw these faces. Try with your pencils for these crooked faces, That pig-sticker in one corner his mouth That overall factory girl her loose cheeks. Find for your pencils A […]...
- Vision (For Aline) Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautiful Faces Looking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream, Yet did he seem Gifted with eyes that could follow the gods to their holiest places. I have no vision of gods, not of Eros with love-arrows laden, […]...
- HAPPINESS AND VISION TOGETHER at the altar we In vision oft were seen by thee, Thyself as bride, as bridegroom I. Oft from thy mouth full many a kiss In an unguarded hour of bliss I then would steal, while none were by. The purest rapture we then knew, The joy those happy hours gave too, When tasted, […]...
- In Vision I Roamed IN vision I roamed the flashing Firmament, So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan, As though with an awed sense of such ostent; And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky, To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome, Where stars the brightest […]...
- A Vision of Beauty WHERE we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted, We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted. By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led Upward to the heaven of heavens-through the star-mists overhead Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night […]...
- Christmas Fancies When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago. And etched on vacant places, Are half forgotten faces Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know – When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow. Uprising from the […]...
- The Vision of Love THE TWILIGHT fleeted away in pearl on the stream, And night, like a diamond done, stood still in our dream. Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright With the sudden vision that made us one with the night. We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here The breasts that were lit with life […]...
- Artilleryman's Vision, The WHILE my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long, And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight passes, And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the breath of my infant, There in the room, as I wake from sleep, this vision […]...
- 446. A Vision AS I stood by yon roofless tower, Where the wa’flower scents the dewy air, Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care. The winds were laid, the air was still, The stars they shot alang the sky; The fox was howling on the hill, And the distant echoing […]...
- Pencils PENCILS Telling where the wind comes from open a story. Pencils Telling where the wind goes end a story. These eager pencils Come to a stop .. only.. when the stars high over Come to a stop. Out of cabalistic to-morrows Come cryptic babies calling life A strong and a lovely thing. I have seen […]...
- 91. The Vision THE SUN had clos’d the winter day, The curless quat their roarin play, And hunger’d maukin taen her way, To kail-yards green, While faithless snaws ilk step betray Whare she has been. The thresher’s weary flingin-tree, The lee-lang day had tired me; And when the day had clos’d his e’e, Far i’ the west, Ben […]...
- Only Dreams A maiden sat in teh sunset glow Of the shadowy, beautiful Long Ago, That we see through a mist of tears. She sat and dreamed, with lips apart, With thoughtful eyes and a beating heart, Of the mystical future years; And brighter far than the sunset skies Was the vision seen by the maiden’s eyes. […]...
- Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
- The Vision of Judgment BY QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS SUGGESTED BY THE COMPOSITION SO ENTITLED BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘WAT TYLER’ ‘A Daniel come to judgment! yes a Daniel! I thank thee, Jew for teaching me that word.’ PREFACE It hath been wisely said, that ‘One fool makes many;’ and it hath been poetically observed – ‘That fools rush in where […]...
- I would to heaven that I were so much clay I would to heaven that I were so much clay, As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling – Because at least the past were passed away – And for the future – (but I write this reeling, Having got drunk exceedingly today, So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling) I say – […]...
- United Front Song And because a man is human He’ll want to eat, and thanks a lot But talk can’t take the place of meat Or fill an empty pot. So left, two, three! So left, two, three! Comrade, there’s a place for you. Take your stand in the workers united front For you are a worker too. […]...
- Innocence The height of wisdom seems to me That of a child; So let my ageing vision be Serene and mild. The depth of folly, I aver, Is to fish deep In that dark pool of science where Truth-demons sleep. Let me not be a bearded sage Seeing too clear; In issues of the atom age […]...
- Going Up Yoyang Tower We climbed Yoyang Tower with All the scene around coming Into vision; looking up the Great River seeing boats turn And enter the Tungting Lake; geese Crying farewell to the river As they flew south; evening falling As if mountain tops upt up the moon With their lips; and we in the Yoyang Tower as […]...
- Every Man Should have a Rifle So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb, Seeing visions “over yonder” of the war I know must come. In the corner – not a vision – but a sign for coming days Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize. And in this, the living […]...
- Vision I love all things that pass: their briefness is Music that fades on transient silences. Winds, birds, and glittering leaves that flare and fall – They fling delight across the world; they call To rhythmic-flashing limbs that rove and race… A moment in the dawn for Youth’s lit face; A moment’s passion, closing on the […]...
- Vision X There in the middle of the field, by the side of a crystalline stream, I saw a bird-cage whose rods and hinges were fashioned by an expert’s hands. In one corner lay a dead bird, and in another were two basins one empty of water and the other of seeds. I stood there reverently, as […]...
- A Vision Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone With no green weight of laurels round his head, But with sad eyes as one uncomforted, And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan For sins no bleating victim can atone, And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed. Girt was he in a garment black and red, […]...
- The Divine Vision THIS mood hath known all beauty, for it sees O’erwhelmed majesties In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold On brows no longer bold, And through the shadowy terrors of their hell The love for which they fell, And how desire which cast them in the deep Called God too from His sleep. Oh, […]...
- Single Vision Before I am completely shriven I shall reject my inch of heaven. Cancel my eyes, and, standing, sink Into my deepest self; there drink Memory down. The banner of My blood, unfurled, will not be love, Only the pity and the pride Of it, pinned to my open side. When I have utterly refined The […]...
- Vision Of The Archangels, The Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world, Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky, Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled, A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie, It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never Have bidden a child turn from the spring […]...
- A Change of Menu Now the new chum loaded his three-nought-three, It’s a small-bore gun, but his hopes were big. “I am fed to the teeth with old ewe,” said he, “And I might be able to shoot a pig.” And he trusted more to his nose than ear To give him warning when pigs were near. Out of […]...
- Her Vision In The Wood Dry timber under that rich foliage, At wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood, Too old for a man’s love I stood in rage Imagining men. Imagining that I could A greater with a lesser pang assuage Or but to find if withered vein ran blood, I tore my body that its wine might cover Whatever […]...
- Moments Of Vision That mirror Which makes of men a transparency, Who holds that mirror And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see Of you and me? That mirror Whose magic penetrates like a dart, Who lifts that mirror And throws our mind back on us, and our heart, Until we start? That mirror Works well in these […]...
- O Sun of Real Peace O SUN of real peace! O hastening light! O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for! O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height-and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend! O so amazing and broad-up there resplendent, darting and burning! O vision prophetic, stagger’d with […]...
- The Double Vision Of Michael Robartes I On the grey rock of Cashel the mind’s eye Has called up the cold spirits that are born When the old moon is vanished from the sky And the new still hides her horn. Under blank eyes and fingers never still The particular is pounded till it is man. When had I my own […]...
- Covering Two Years This nothingness that feeds upon itself: Pencils that turn to water in the hand, Parts of a sentence, hanging in the air, Thoughts breaking in the mind like glass, Blank sheets of paper that reflect the world Whitened the world that I was silenced by. There were two years of that. Slowly, Whatever splits, dissevers, […]...
- The Voice of the Waters WHERE the Greyhound River windeth through a loneliness so deep, Scarce a wild fowl shakes the quiet that the purple boglands keep, Only God exults in silence over fields no man may reap. Where the silver wave with sweetness fed the tiny lives of grass I was bent above, my image mirrored in the fleeting […]...
- 92. Suppressed Stanzas of "The Vision" WITH secret throes I marked that earth, That cottage, witness of my birth; And near I saw, bold issuing forth In youthful pride, A Lindsay race of noble worth, Famed far and wide. Where, hid behind a spreading wood, An ancient Pict-built mansion stood, I spied, among an angel brood, A female pair; Sweet shone […]...
- On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
- My Comrade Out from my window westward I turn full oft my face; But the mountains rebuke the vision That would encompass space; They lift their lofty foreheads To the kiss of the clouds above, And ask, “With all our glory, Can we not win your love?” I answer, “No, oh mountains! I see that you are […]...
- The Masked Face I found me in a great surging space, At either end a door, And I said: “What is this giddying place, With no firm-fixéd floor, That I knew not of before?” “It is Life,” said a mask-clad face. I asked: “But how do I come here, Who never wished to come; Can the light and […]...
- The beans were exciting I tried cooking in my new Quicksilver jacket, just An affectation I assure you – no, not the coat Or the cooking but me in the wearing of it, A form of warped appreciation, and when I think Of it the gag was truly fitting; it wasn’t new, A barely used waterproof surfers’ jacket bought […]...
- Portrait (For S. A.)TO write one book in five years Or five books in one year, To be the painter and the thing painted, … where are we, bo? Wait-get his number. The barber shop handling is here And the tweeds, the cheviot, the Scotch Mist, And the flame orange scarf. Yet there is more-he sleeps […]...
- Retired I used to sing, when I was young, The joy of idleness; But now I’m grey I hold my tongue, For frankly I confess If I had not some job to do I would be bored to death; So I must toil until I’m through With this asthmatic breath. Where others slothfully would brood beg […]...