David Silverman/John Betjeman Come friendly bombs, and fall on those Who clip their nails or pick their nose Or drop their knickers on the train Twixt Wembley Park and Rayners Lane. Respect the genial, genteel folk Of Hampstead, Highgate, Gospel Oak; Spare leafy Essex excess noise: Preserve the peace of Theydon Bois!
Sylvia Fairley/Rudyard Kipling If you can cease to shout ‘I’m on the train!’ Assaulting ears with trivial conversation — Transported past the barriers of pain Your captive audience shrinks at your oration – Then curb your puerile prating, we implore, And trash your phone, employ a voice less shrill, you Will find there’s gold in silence; and, what’s more Your fellow travellers won’t be forced to kill you.
Basil Ransome-Davies/Philip Larkin They brought you up, your mum and dad, To show respect to all you meet, So do not be a Jack the Lad. Seats are for arses, not for feet.
Nicholas Hodgson/Ted Hughes Crow liked the underground. He liked the descent into the tunnels of Hades, And the hordes crowding the moving staircase, Arguing, jostling, getting in the way Tumbling over one another and causing accidents. Crow laughed. Stand on the right, walk on the left, said Crow.
Chris O’Carroll/Ogden Nash Some of the more intensely spiced foods you enjoy eating Are likely to occasion discomfort as their aromas waft toward adjacent seating. These delicacies, albeit pleasing to your palate, may nevertheless afflict your fellow passengers with olfactory Sensations which they regard as the very opposite of satisfactory. We are therefore respectfully requesting That you refrain from ingesting All such comestibles (which exist in such multiplicity That we cannot be taxed with singling out the cuisine associated with any particular ethnicity).
Hugo Jayson/W.H. Auden Stop all the talk. Less volume on your phone. You mustn’t natter as if you were here alone. Muffle your voice. We do not care to hear Loud details of your love life or career.
Our journeys underground — North, South, East, West — Are pleasanter when you give it a rest. Your noise, your rudeness, troubles us too long. You think our patience lasts for ever? You are wrong.
Bill Greenwell/Siegfried Sassoon I knew a stupid passenger To whom it did not once occur That dropping food inside a train Is proof of an abandoned brain.
Some witnesses, with civic pride, Pushed him upon the line. He fried. Young cretin, cease, or you shall know The hell where louts who litter go.
Alan Millard/William Wordsworth My heart leaps up when I behold A maiden young and sweet Who, well aware that I grow old, Will offer me her seat, Such clouds of glory do they trail Who, being young and fit, Have pity on the old who ail And stand that they may sit.
Brian Murdoch/in the style of a psalm Blessed is the man who walketh in righteousness, For he shall pass fully down the carriage And obstruct not his fellow-men, Nor shall he usurp the seats of the infirm. And at the ending of the journey Lift up thy gates, O Lord, And do thou ensure that we forget not our belongings, But keep us ever mindful of the gap.
George Simmers/Seamus Heaney My father’s boots, heavy with mud’s crust As he trudges from the fields, past the yard’s turnip-snedder, And in his hand his great spade, held exactly At the point of balance, lightly. The spade’s lodged in the shed, boots removed by the door, Before it’s the big chair, and putting his feet up, Which he’d never do in the front parlour. He’d know the right thing on a train, also.
Derek Robinson/A.A. Milne They’re changing trains at Crystal Palace, Christopher Robin and Pooh and Alice. ‘Now, don’t let your fingers get trapped in the doors — Too late! They’ve closed, and there go Pooh’s paws!’ Says Alice.
Your next challenge is to submit a poem by a pet who’s cheesed off with its owner (up to 16 lines). Please email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by 5 August.
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