'With my feathers of power I laugh as the hours go slowly by...'
Transcribed from this highly recced Betjeman docuthing, as it doesn't seem to be online elsewhere.
Ho for the Kilburn High Road
Ho for the Kilburn High Road! Ho for a sumptuous feast!
It's your road and it's my road, and Ireland meets the East.
Let's mount the 16 bus with care, it's empty, wide and free;
It will take us out of everywhere to the days that used to be.
Forget the littered pavements, the chain stores row on row,
and the super super cinema where our parents used to go.
With Shoot Up Hill before us we leave the hemmed-in town,
and raise a country chorus to Cricklewood and the Crown!
There stood a village marketplace where now you buy your yams,
and I like in memory to trace the red electric trams.
However far their journeys made, they always waited here,
and in this terracotta shade their passengers drank beer.
John Betjeman
And some scavenged illustrations.
Ho for the Kilburn High Road
Ho for the Kilburn High Road! Ho for a sumptuous feast!
It's your road and it's my road, and Ireland meets the East.
Let's mount the 16 bus with care, it's empty, wide and free;
It will take us out of everywhere to the days that used to be.
Forget the littered pavements, the chain stores row on row,
and the super super cinema where our parents used to go.
With Shoot Up Hill before us we leave the hemmed-in town,
and raise a country chorus to Cricklewood and the Crown!
There stood a village marketplace where now you buy your yams,
and I like in memory to trace the red electric trams.
However far their journeys made, they always waited here,
and in this terracotta shade their passengers drank beer.
John Betjeman
And some scavenged illustrations.