Lines on a Laureate-to-Be

Sir John Betjeman's death last month has left

A title vacant and his Queen bereft.

Who now will hymn enduring England's glories,

Her verdant greenery and ruling Tories;

Who is to laud Elizabethan splendor,

Monarchic births and teas, and sterling tender?

Who, in short, can fill a post so hoary it

Dates back to Dryden, the first Poet Laureate?

Since then, succeeding crowns have given benison

To sixteen poets, e.g., Wordsworth, Tennyson;

And some who scaled Parnassus not as high,

Including Tate, Rowe, Gibber, Eusden, Pye.

All talents, large or nil, agreed to nurse

Knee-jerk reactions into public verse

And rhyme most gravely when the royalty ails,

Thus Alfred Austin on a Prince of Wales:

"Across the wires the electric message came:

'He is no better, he is much the same.' "

These troubled times and England deserve no less

Than similar proclamations of distress

Or cheer, when suitable events arise:

Bank holidays, that look of Princess Di's.

And so from moors to Fleet Street the search is on

For a successor to the late Sir John.

The guessing and the gossip chiefly hearken

To the metrical skills of Philip Larkin,

Who writes both well and seldom. Other views:

Why not Gavin Ewart or Ted Hughes?

Added to the names, obscure and famous,

Have been D.J. Enright, Kingsley Amis.

So many bards, and just one regal boon,

What hearts beat fast, this merry month of June!

It falls on Mrs. Thatcher to recommend

One candidate; uncertainty will end.

The Queen can then bestow her imprimatur

On the Muse Erato's favored son . . . or daughter?