NORFOLK

Good evening to the reader of my blog.   I noticed we have not looked at any poems for a while.   A poem much in my mind lately is Norfolk by John Betjeman.   It conjures up the days of innocence spent as a young boy with his father wandering the Norfolk lanes.   A halcyonic time before all the problems,  fears and doubts of adulthood arrive.  Haven't we all at some time wished for a return to a time of innocence and happiness -  a time when pleasure came from simple pastimes, even  if only for one hour?

How did the Devil come? When first attack?
    These Norfolk lanes recall lost innocence,
The years fall off and find me walking back
    Dragging a stick along the wooden fence
Down this same path, where, forty years ago,
My father strolled behind me, calm and slow.

I used to fill my hands with sorrel seeds
    And shower him with them from the tops of stiles,
I used to butt my head into his tweeds
    To make him hurry down those languorous miles
Of ash and alder-shaded lanes, till here
Our moorings and the masthead would appear.

There after supper lit by lantern light
    Warm in the cabin I could lie secure
And hear against the polished sides at night
    The lap lap lapping of the weedy Bure,
A whispering and watery Norfolk sound
Telling of all the moonlit reeds around.

How did the Devil come? When first attack?
    The church is just the same, though now I know
Fowler of Louth restored it. Time, bring back
    The rapturous ignorance of long ago,
The peace, before the dreadful daylight starts,
Of unkept promises and broken hearts.



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