University of Virginia Library

Canto 1 The universal lure exercised by London.

London! Thy lure is over all the world.
For thou dost call the plough-boy from the plough,
Or aged labourer from his clayey toil,
Or farmer from his stacks and mellowing fruit.
The highroads to thee with wild hopes are thronged,
Thou art the mighty candle of the world,
In whose flame all those human moths are burned,
Returning and returning till they drop
Shrivelled at last, yet fain still of the flame.
The young girl, discontented in her lanes,
Yearns to be whirled into thy fuller life,
And then falls strangled or returns to die.
The widow, pined with solitary thought,
Throws out at eve her lonely thought to thee,
And sighs for the distraction of thy streets,
The numbing roar, the hoarse relief of wheels,
And mesmerising murmur. Now to thee
Returns the mother, o'er her boy to watch,
Her only son, by many a snare beset
In thy great whirlpool. Little can she do
But pray alone and trust her vehement sigh
May pierce the dreadful curtain thou hast raised,
As though to hide thyself from God himself,
And to transgress obscure. The good man hears
Thy far off soft depopulating voice,
And desert-making whisper and he feels
That thou wilt give him greater space for good
And wider opportunity, and wings
That may sustain him in such arduous flight.
In thee the schemer sees more scope for schemes
And dazzling crown for cold audacity.
How shall the thief in country lane employ
His dexterous art? To thee, to thee he comes
And thou receiv'st him, as all others, well.
Why should the village queen, so fresh of face,
Wither beside the winding of the stream
And age unseen beneath the ancient elm?
To thee she carries, one dark night, unknown,
Unguessed at, unsuspected, all she hath;
A cheek of wanton dew and milky bloom,
And thou dost take her in thy fell embrace,
And dryest all the dew upon her cheek,
And makest pale her bloom. Yet some have come
To make within thy shadow splendid names,
Trudging unknown through many a weary field,
By mighty hope upheld; or driven perhaps
From quietude by fate to waiting glory,
And crown which thou alone didst hold. And yet
Even of these we must remember some
Who wrote and wrestled, but went down at last;
He who in great hope coming from the North,
Carrying his thoughts with him like arrows sheaved,
Took poison for the bread thou didst deny.
And some whom thou hast called, in theatre
And senate, or by fire of written page
Have risen unto glory. Still to thee
The seaman turns far out on landless foam,
And for thy harbours yearns and for thy docks.
The soldier standing sentry in midnight,
Under the Northern or the Eastern star,
Remembers each familiar street and haunt
Where with his friends he drank his final cup,
Ere for the distant conflict he embarked.
And thou dost call to thee the glittering East,
The sparkling potentates of sunwashed plains,
Thy whisper's in the ear of the orient
And sad and dark and bearded, yet arrayed
With all those filched lights of Indian soil
They ride thy streets. For ever, city strange,
Thou shalt attract, some to a desperate doom
And to thy multitudinous loud grave;
Others, though fewer, to the throne of souls.
Thou feedest like a spider on thy sons,
Enmeshed, enwebbed, thou feedest on them slow.
Thou beckonest, and thy river is the bourne.
Thou whisperest and dark winter is the end.
A million hearts that beat beyond the seas
Beat but for thee. What loveliness is thine,
What mass of pinnacle or masonry
That lures the wanderer back, the stranger charms!
Thy beauty that so fascinates the soul,
Is not of rule or line, to be appraised,
Or shown as model: but beneath the moon
Thou art as history laid bare, and strange
As fable or as legend are thy towers,
Bridges with beauty clothed and silent stream
That flows with all its memories upcast.
Is this the hour, the hour of midnight deep,
London, that thou becom'st a living thing,
With superhuman power, with spirit will,
With strong attraction on the air of night?
Is this the hour thou weavest, without word,
The spell that draws the village girl and boy
All to forsake and run into thy arms?
Or art thou like some goddess, sitting blind,
Feeling with dreadful and with doubtful arms
Outstretched to take, to imprison and to stay?
And now for centuries thou hast had power
To woo from alien lands and other shores.
One maiden in old time out of the East
Wandered from Palestine o'er perilous sea
And hostile land to seek that lover out
Who by her father had been prisoner held
And whom she learned to love with secret heart.
And knowing but one word, and that thy name,
London, and murmuring London, on and on,
Fought out her long way to his English arms.
Her then I sing and how to thee she came.