Streets, and Other Verses

Of the pieces contained in this collection fifteen arehere printed in book form for the first time. Theremainder are taken from the four volumes of verse whichI have issued during the past ten years, all of which arenow out of print.

“A Triumphal Ode” first appeared in The PoetryChapbook, and “Post-Georgian Poet in Search of a Master,”in Coterie.

D. G.

[8]

November 1st, 1920.

[9]

This great grey city that bred me and mine—

Supreme, mysterious, dirty and divine—

Is made up all of contrast, light and gloom.

It has green hills and parks where flowers bloom;

And shadowed pathways where young lips are shy

And warm hands tangle while the night slips by;

Deserts of humble brick, resigned and drear;

And crowded taverns, full of noise and beer;

Thronged streets where jostle theatre and hotel,

And stately terraces where rich folk dwell....

It has black alleys, and most dismal plains

Crossed by long, steady, fire-emitting trains;

Foul slums and palaces, prisons and spires

And suburbs where the jaundiced clerk expires.

But love and hope are always with us, too:

And such bright eyes, to make the sky seem blue!

All of my life I have spent up and down

Adventurously, in this unending town,

And magic things have seen at Fortune Green

And fairies loitering in a grove at Sheen;

Chelsea made crimson in the sunset’s glare;

The dawn transfiguring even Russell Square....

And I have watched, all through a summer’s day,

The brown-winged barges loaded up with hay,

And seen the heavy cargo-steamers slide

Past Woolwich Ferry, with the flowing tide;

Found joy in travel on a motor ’bus,

And glowing worlds Within the Radius!

And so, for songs, my heart must needs repeat

The cries and whispers of the London street.

[10]

[11]

“This great grey city that bred me and mine ...”

	PAGE
I
Streets	17
Villas (Leytonstone)	19
Cherry Gardens (Rotherhithe)	20
Mare Street, N.E.	21
Kingsland Road, N.E.	22
Living-in (Brixton Rise)	23
Newport Street, E.	24
The Spanish Sailor (Charlton Vale)	25
Outside Charing Cross (2.35 p.m.)	26
Saloon Bar, Railway Arms (Waterloo Road)	27
Mrs. Skeffyngton Calhus	28
Little Houses (Hill Street, Knightsbridge)	30
Malise-Robes	31
The Young Married Couple (Muswell Hill)	32
First Floor Back	33
Maisonnettes (Harrow Road)	34
Walworth Road, S.E.	35
The Country Boy	37
The Letter	38
Lodgings (Bloomsbury)	40
“L’Ile de Java”	41
The Poplars	42
[12]West End Lane	43
Hampstead	45
Oak Hill Way	48
Spaniards’	49
Richmond Park	50
Westminster Bridge (June Night)	51
Gladstone Terrace	52
Front Doors (Bayswater)	53
The Ballad of the Brave Lover (Thames Embankment)	55
The Quarry	56
In a Taxi	57
In Praise of London	58
II
Highbrow Hill	65
Post-Georgian Poet in Search of a Master	66
Merveilleuses Des Nos Jours (1914)	68
Daisymead	69
Benevolence	70
Mr. Reginald Hyphen (St. James’s Street)	71
She-Devil (Davies Street)	72
Ritz (July, 1914)	73
A Triumphal Ode	74
III
Moritura	79
[13]The Voices	80
Cuckfield Park	81
“Now slants the moonlight...”	82
“Sang a Maid at Peep of Day”	83
A Home-Coming	84
The Kiss	85
On the Promenade (March Winds: Seaford)	86
June	87
To ——	88
The Case of Pierrot	89
Pompes Funèbres	90
Ah! You Moon	91
A Little Poem on Sin	92
Heart and Soul	93
The Singer’s Journey	94
IV
Brighton Beach (Whit-Monday, 1909)	99
Beaugency-sur-Loire	100
In Picardy	101
Calle Memo O Loredan	102
Barcelona	103
Juillac-le-Coq (Charente)	104
Roads	105
Envoi (Ars Longa)	106