Verse and Worse Part 12

THE HOMES OF LONDON

(_After Mrs. Hemans_)

The happy homes of London, How beautiful they stand!

The crowded human rookeries That mar this Christian land.

Where cats in hordes upon the roof For nightly music meet, And the horse, with non-adhesive hoof, Skates slowly down the street.

The merry homes of London!

Around bare hearths at night, With hungry looks and sickly mien, The children wail and fight.

There woman's voice is only heard In shrill, abusive key, And men can hardly speak a word That is not blasphemy.

The healthy homes of London!

With weekly wifely wage, The hopeless husbands, out of work, Their daily thirst a.s.suage.

The overcrowded tenement Is comfortless and bare, The atmosphere is redolent Of hunger and despair.

The blessed homes of London!

By thousands, on her stones, The helpless, homeless, dest.i.tute, Do nightly rest their bones.

On pavements Piccadilly way, In slumber like the dead, Their wan pathetic forms they lay, And make their humble bed.

The free, fair homes of London!

From all the thinking throng, Who mourn a nation's apathy, The cry goes up, 'How long!'

And those who love old England's name, Her welfare and renown, Can only contemplate with shame The homes of London town.

THE HAPPIEST LAND

(_After Longfellow_)

There sat one day in a tavern, Somewhere near Lincoln's Inn, Six sleepy-looking working men, Imbibing 'twos' of gin.

The Potman filled their tankards With the liquor each preferred, Torpid and somnolent they sat, And spake not one rude word.

But when the potman vanished, A brawny Scot stood forth; 'Change here,' quoth he, 'for Aberdeen, Strathpeffer and the North!

'No country in the world, I ken, With Scotia can compare, With all the dour and canny men, And the bonnie la.s.ses there.

'I hae a wee bit hoosie, An' a burn runs greetin' by, An' unco crockit Minister An' a bairn to milk the ki';

'I hae a muckle haggis, A bap an' a skian-dhu, A cairngorm and a bannock, An' a sonsy kailyard too!'

'Bejabers!' said an Irishman, 'Acushla and Ochone!

There's but one country on the Earth, Ould Oireland stands alone!

'Give me the Emerald Isle, avick!

With murphies for to ate, An' as many pigs and childer As the fingers on me _fate_.'

Exclaimed a Frenchman, 'Par Exemple!

Donnez-moi ma Patrie!

Vin ordinaire and savoir faire Are good enough for me!

'Have you the penknife of my Aunt?

Mais non, helas! but then, The female gardener has got Some paper and a pen!'

Then spoke a Greek, 'The Isles of Greece!

What can compare with those?

Thala.s.sa! and Eureka!

Rhododaktylos eos!'

'On London streets I'm working, With a vat of asphalt stew, Putting off the old macadam, And a-laying down the new;

'But the country of my childhood Is the best that man may know, Oh didemi also phemi, Zoe mou sas agapo!'

Straight rose a German and remarked 'Vot of die Vaterland?

Ach Himmel! Unberufen!

And the luffly German band?

'Gif me some Gotterdammerung, And nuddings more I need, But ewigkeit and sauerkraut And niebelungenlied!'

'Nonsense!' exclaimed an Englishman.

('I surely ought to know!) Old England is the only place Where any man should go!

'Show me the something furriner Who such a fact denies, And, if I can't convince 'im, I can black 'is bloomin' eyes!'

Then entered in the potman, And pointed to the door; 'Outside,' said he, 'is where _you_'ll go, If I have any more!'

It was six friendly working men, Br.i.m.m.i.n.g with 'twos' of gin, Who crept from out the tavern, As the Dawn came creeping in.

A LONDON INVOLUNTARY

(_After W. E. Henley_)

_Spizzicato non poco skirtsando_

Old Palace Yard!

Hark how their breath draws lank and hard, The sallow stern police!

Breaking the desultory midnight peace With plangent call, to cry 'Division'! This their first especial charge.

And now, low, luminous, and large, The slumbrous Member hurries by.

Let us take cab, Dear Heart, take cab and go From out the lith of this loud world (I know The meaning of the word). Come, let us hie To where the lamp-posts ouch the troubled sky,-- (And if there is one thing for which I vouch It is my knowledge of the verb to ouch.) So, as we steal Homeward together, we shall feel The buxom breeze,-- (Observe the epithet; an apt one, if you please.) Down through the sober paven street, Which, purged and sweet, Gleams in the ambient deluge of the water-cart, Bemused and blurred and pinkly l.u.s.trous, where The blandest lion in Trafalgar Square Seems but a part Of the great continent of light,-- An attribute of the embittered night,-- How new, how naked and how clean!

Couchant, slow, s.h.i.+mmering, superb!

Constant to one environment, nor even seen Pottering aimlessly along the kerb.

Lo!

On the pavement, one of those Grim men who go down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps, Blaspheming, reeling in a foul ellipse, Home to some tangled alley-bedside goes,-- Oozing and flushed, sharing his elemental mirth With all the jocund undissembling earth; Drooping his shameless nose, Nor hitching up his drifting, s.h.i.+fting clothes.

And here is Piccadilly! Loudly dense, Intractable, voluminous, immense!

(Dear, dear my heart's desire, can I be talking sense?)