Thoughts on John Betjeman's poem "In Westminster Abbey"
there but for the grace of G-d
I have recently acquired the Collected Poems of John Betjeman. I was already familiar with his poetry — who can forget his Wikipedia-notable poem “Slough”?
Some time after first stumbling across “Slough” — perhaps a couple years ago, some time before I picked up his Collected Poems at Waterstones — I happened across Betjeman’s remarkable poem “In Westminster Abbey,” originally published as part of Old Lights for New Chancels (1940). I reproduce the poem in full below for you to read:
In Westminster Abbey
Let me take this other glove off
As the vox humana swells,
And the beauteous fields of Eden
Bask beneath the Abbey bells.
Here, where England's statesmen lie,
Listen to a lady's cry.
Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans,
Spare their women for Thy Sake,
And if that is not too easy
We will pardon Thy Mistake.
But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be,
Don't let anyone bomb me.
Keep our Empire undismembered
Guide our Forces by Thy Hand,
Gallant blacks from far Jamaica,
Honduras and Togoland;
Protect them Lord in all their fights,
And, even more, protect the whites.
Think of what our Nation stands for,
Books from Boots' and country lanes,
Free speech, free passes, class distinction,
Democracy and proper drains.
Lord, put beneath Thy special care
One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square.
Although dear Lord I am a sinner,
I have done no major crime;
Now I'll come to Evening Service
Whensoever I have the time.
So, Lord, reserve for me a crown,
And do not let my shares go down.
I will labour for Thy Kingdom,
Help our lads to win the war,
Send white feathers to the cowards
Join the Women's Army Corps,
Then wash the steps around Thy Throne
In the Eternal Safety Zone.
Now I feel a little better,
What a treat to hear Thy Word,
Where the bones of leading statesmen
Have so often been interr'd.
And now, dear Lord, I cannot wait
Because I have a luncheon date.
What a poem! And here, most people would stop. They would read it over, admire (as I do) Betjeman’s sardonic wit and his virtuosic mastery of the poetic technique. And they would pass on.
There are some people who have posted the text of the poem on their blogs, and — presumably in order to avoid allegations of copyright infringement — add the barest level of commentary.1 By which, of course, I mean they add a few sentences where they summarize what Betjeman is saying. Maybe they even successfully realize that Betjeman is not being serious — that the narrator he’s created is an unsympathetic, deeply unpleasant person.2
Here’s my view:
Yes, the poem is satirical. Yes, the narrator is unpleasant. She visits Westminster Abbey during the Blitz — the year is 1940, remember — and sits down to prayer. What emerges from her mouth? A plea to “bomb the Germans!” And this upper-class lady (you know she’s upper-class because she lives at Cadogan Square) has the temerity to excuse G-d if saving the lives of German women is beyond His power. “We will pardon Thy mistake.” Who says that during prayer?
Betjeman, in addition, has our narrator reveal her opinions on race, her ideas on what England should look like, and her preferred occupation during wartime — doing something safe, in the “Eternal Safety Zone,” because obviously she’s not the one who should be put at risk. How dare you suggest the idea.
We are, I think, supposed to laugh at her. It’s genuinely absurd to imagine someone addressing G-d as one would a tradesman, directing Him to dispense his protection. And then the ending — she finishes her prayer and takes her leave because she’s got a social obligation which, evidently, takes priority over religion.3
And yet.
I admit (a trifle shamefully) that I did not see beyond that surface-level reading until some time after I first read this poem. Yes, Betjeman’s narrator is arrogant, closed-minded, elitist, imperious, and more than a little unfamiliar with the precepts of her faith. But what I had not realized, at first — what cannot be forgotten — is this: she is afraid. The narrator of this poem is facing bombs falling from the sky and is praying — in her own limited, deeply flawed fashion — for protection. At first glance, her pretensions may appear humorous, but a far better adjective here is “tragic.” Can it be held against her if, in her moment of crisis, she lacks the proper words? Let us be generous. She’s doing her best, I’d like to think, even if her best is so far short of the ideal.
If nothing else, she does seem to derive some comfort from her time at prayer. She doesn’t actually harm anyone over the course of this poem — yes, maybe she is complicit in the abuses of the British class system, maybe at some later or earlier time she did something wrong, but in this poem, the worst that can be said of her is that she’s somewhat impolite to G-d. Who, one would hope, would understand, given the circumstances.
Consider, also, that this anonymous lady is almost (almost!) thoughtful, in her way. We wince to read her thoughts on the British Empire’s colonial troops (particularly “even more, protect the whites”). Still and all, when was the last time you saw a black person in a World War II film? I remember right-wingers shitting themselves in anger because there was one minor Indian character in Dunkirk. Indeed, most classic WWII-themed cinema kinda elides over all that — either because Hollywood was focusing on American history,4 or because…well, I don’t know. I’ll be blunt: this lady, for all her faults, somehow has done a better job of acknowledging that aspect of history than the entire movie industry from 1945 until pretty much the present. Not a high bar to clear, but still.
And — finally, since this poem explicitly centers around a Christian house of worship — even if the narrator were unreservedly evil, I do feel a little bad about making fun of her too much. Matthew 5:44-45, after all.5
Those are my notions, disjointed though they may be. Betjeman’s poetry is lighthearted, often ironic in tone — but I think this particular poem (and its narrator) should not be underestimated.
Presumably, they are attempting to qualify for “fair use” under US copyright law, or as it’s called in the UK, “fair dealing.”
This, alas, is beyond the abilities of the AI-generated summarizer used by AllPoetry.com — although I have a grudging respect for that website’s flagrant disrespect for copyright law (as they republish the works of dead poets alongside user-submitted creations), I draw the line at the use of AI. It’s not that the AI summaries even add anything — their AI summary for “In Westminster Abbey” correctly identifies that the poem is about Westminster Abbey but thinks this poem was intended to be patriotic, which is wildly incorrect. AllPoetry.com, if your admins are reading this blog post — they should be ashamed!
Curious that the two should be separate! I am reminded of the observation by Sir Humphrey Appleby that “the Church of England is primarily a social organization, not a religious one.”
The US military was segregated until Harry Truman desegregated it via executive order, after the war.
I do not claim any authority in Christianity — I am, in fact, an atheist, save for a vague hope that my divine ancestor occupies a place somewhere in the celestial bureaucracy and is doing his best to keep me from harm.