High dormers are rising <br />So sharp and surprising, <br />And ponticum edges <br />The driveways of gravel; <br />Stone houses from ledges <br />Look down on ravines. <br />The vision can travel <br />From gable to gable, <br />Italianate mansion <br />And turretted stable, <br />A sylvan expansion <br />So varied and jolly <br />Where laurel and holly <br />Commingle their greens. <br /> <br />Serene on a Sunday <br />The sun glitters hotly <br />O'er mills that on Monday <br />With engines will hum. <br />By tramway excursion <br />To Dore and to Totley <br />In search of diversion <br />The millworkers come; <br />But in our arboreta <br />The sounds are discreeter <br />Of shoes upon stone - <br />The worshippers wending <br />To welcoming chapel, <br />Companioned or lone; <br />And over a pew there <br />See loveliness lean, <br />As Eve shows her apple <br />Through rich bombazine; <br />What love is born new there <br />In blushing eighteen! <br /> <br />Your prospects will please her, <br />The iron-king's daughter, <br />Up here on Broomhill; <br />Strange Hallamshire, County <br />Of dearth and of bounty, <br />Of brown tumbling water <br />And furnace and mill. <br />Your own Ebenezer <br />Looks down from his height <br />On back street and alley <br />And chemical valley <br />Laid out in the light; <br />On ugly and pretty <br />Where industry thrives <br />In this hill-shadowed city <br />Of razors and knives.<br /><br />John Betjeman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-edwardian-sunday-broomhill-sheffield/
