Return to Ealing and update

Return to Ealing, by John Betjeman

Return, return to Ealing,
Worn poet of the farm!
Regain your boyhood feeling
Of uninvaded calm!
For there the leafy avenues
Of lime and chestnut mix’d
Do widely wind, by art designed,
The costly houses ’twixt.

No early morning tractors
The thrush and blackbird drown,
No nuclear reactors
Bulge huge below the down,
No youth upon his motor-bike
His lust for power fulfil
With dentist’d drill intent to kill
The silence of the hills.

In Ealing on a Sunday
Bell-haunted quiet falls,
In Ealing on a Monday
‘Milk-o!’ the milkman calls;
No lorries grind in bottom gear
Up steep and narrow lanes,
Nor constant here offend the ear
Low-flying aeroplanes.

Return, return to Ealing,
Worn poet of the farm!
Regain your boyhood feeling
Of uninvaded calm!
Where smoothly glides the bicycle
And softly flows the Brent
And a gentle gale from Perivale
Sends up the hayfield scent.



Return to Ealing, by Graham

Return, return to Ealing,
Worn poet from the sticks!
Regain your boyhood feeling
Of multi ethnic mix!
For there the leafy avenues
Of lime and chestnut mix’d
Do widely wind, by art designed,
The costly houses ’twixt.

No early morning tractors
The thrush and blackbird drown,
No nuclear reactors
Bulge huge below the down,
The youth upon his motor-bike
His lust for power fulfils
And muggers on their mopeds
Snatch mobiles at their wills.

In Ealing on a Sunday
Sunday trading malls,
In Ealing on a Monday
Constant mobile calls;
Lorries grind in bottom gear
Past buses faster lanes,
And constant here offend the ear
Heathrow's aeroplanes.

Return, return to Ealing,
Worn poet from the sticks!
Regain your boyhood feeling
Of multi ethnic mix!
Where smoothly glides the bicycle
And softly flows the Brent
And Hoovers now in Perivale
Has Tesco flats to rent