MURRAY, you bid my plastic pen

A preface write. Well, here's one then.

Verse seems to me the shortest way

Of saying what one has to say,

A memorable means of dealing

With mood or person, place or feeling.

Anything extra that is given

Is taken as a gift from Heaven.

The English language has such range,

Such rhymes and half-rhymes, rhythms strange,

And such variety of tone,

It is a music of its own.

With MILTON it has organ power

As loud as bells in Redcliffe tower;

It falls like winter crisp and light

On COWPER's Buckinghamshire night,

It can be gentle as a lake,

Where WORDSWORTH's oars a ripple make

Or rest with TENNYSON at ease

In sibilance of summer seas,

Or languorous as lilies grow,

When DOWSON's lamp is burning low -

For endless changes may be rung

On church-bells of the English tongue.

MURRAY, your venerable door

Opened to BYRON, CRABBE and MOORE

And TOMMY CAMPBELL. How can I,

A buzzing insubstantial fly,

Compare with them? I do not try,

Pleased simply to be one who shares

An imprint that was also theirs,

And grateful to the people who,

Have bought my verses hitherto.

BETJEMAN