Easter: From Bad to Verse! It seems that the muse is at work at this time of
year with many famous, and some lesser known, poets putting
pen/quill/keyboard to paper at Easter. Here’s an “unusual” selection:
Loneliness:
by John Betjeman Easter Hymn
by A D Hope
The last year's leaves are on the
beech:
The twigs are black; the cold is dry;
To deeps beyond the deepest
reach
The Easter bells enlarge the sky. Make no mistake; there will be no
forgiveness;
No voice can harm you and no
hand will save;
Fenced by the magic of deliberate
darkness
You walk on the sharp edges of the
wave;
O ordered metal clatter-clang!
Is yours the song the angels sang?
You fill my heart with joy and grief -
Belief! Belief! And unbelief.
Trouble with soul again the
putrefaction
Where Lazarus three days rotten
lies content.
Your human tears will be the seed
of faction
Murder the sequel to your
sacrament.
And, though you tell me I shall die,
You say not how or when or why.
Indifferent the finches sing,
Unheeding roll the lorries past:
The City of God is built like other
cities:
Judas negotiates the loans you
float;
You will meet Caiaphas upon
committees;
You will be glad of Pilate's casting
vote.
What misery will this year bring
Now spring is in the air at last?
For, sure as blackthorn bursts to
snow,
Cancer in some of us will grow,
The tasteful crematorium door
Shuts out for some the furnace
roar;
Your truest lovers still the foolish
virgins,
Your heart will sicken at the
marriage feasts
Knowing they watch you from the
darkened gardens
Being polite to your official guests.
But church-bells open on the blast
Our loneliness, so long and vast.
Sir John Betjeman an English poet, writer, and broadcaster who described
himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack". Poet Laureate - 1972 until his death.
Alec Derwent Hope, an Australian poet, essayist, satirist. He was referred to in
an American journal as "the 20th century's greatest 18th-century poet"
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