Osbert Lancaster, On Not Going to Greece, Easter 1968

Easter 1968; I was in Greece. I remember it well.

 I remember cutting out this poem by Osbert Lancaster, from a copy of The Sunday Times, I think.

The paste made it illegible in places. So here's a clearer version:

ON NOT GOING TO GREECE,

EASTER 1968.

The mike behind the architrave

Consolidates Athene's loss

And Agamemnon's mask must save

The face of Colonel Pattakos.

Of no avail to ask just now

The barman at the Grande Bretagne

For news of friend, or why and how...

His lips are sealed, and so are mine.

The Pythian rocks are slogan-scrawled,

"The army's backing Greece and so

Must you!" The guides are too enthralled

To hear the Sibyl answer "No!"

                   But I would not care

To greet my Lord in Constitution Square.

Osbert Lancaster

Roy Fuller wrote an autumnal poem on the topic of the Junta, during that period:

"TO A FRIEND LEAVING FOR GREECE".

From the Tin Islands' autumn where the foliage hangs

In green and yellow tatters like an old

Set on a provincial stage, you go

To burgundy seas, white harbours, empty skies-

Greece...

The last stanza:

You visit a country where the unclean being

Who brought disaster has already been expelled,

And far back in its history the gloomy date:

'Twenty-eighth year of the War. Blockade of Athens'.

Will you return with hopeful messages

For the new victims of the Theban king

And of the destroyers of democracy?


Listen to George Seferis breaking his silence and making his statement on the Junta in 1969, on the BBC's Greek Service (fourth item down on right)

A satirical song, Martial Law

There's even a blog on Britain and the Colonels