POETRY REVIEW JOHN BETJEMIN A SHROPSHIRE LAD

One of the late great Poet Laureate’s funniest and most delightful works, from 1940, dealing with the ghost of Captain Matthew Webb, the famous first Channel Swimmer, (he did it in 1873) as he swims his way to Heaven through the towns and public buildings of his home town and county, famous for its place at the heart of the industrial revolution.

Betjemin avoids the sense of tragedy behind Webb’s death in 1883. Pushed to further and further extreme swims, he perished trying to cross the top of Niagara Falls,

Here we see him coming home using the Shropshire canal, wearing his dripping wet winding sheet and Edwardian swim-wear.

His ghost is observed as he slips through the towns, Dawley, Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, etc. A meeting at the Congregational Hall is disturbed when he climbs in through a window, crosses the room, and through the wall.

Soon, the entire County gets to hear the legend of Webb’s final swim – a tribute to the town that in truth should celebrate him among its many heroes.

The singsong lyricism of the poem is wonderful, and hearing audio-recordings of Betjemin reading the work himself could soften the hearts of many who might otherwise consider poetry as of little interest to them.

The title is shared by A E Houseman’s much longer autobiographical poem, A Shropshire Lad.

Arthur Chappell