Reuben and Other Poems by Robert Leighton |
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LONDON. |
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 | Reuben and Other Poems |  |
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LONDON.
To live in London was my young wood-dream—London, where all the books come from, the lode
That draws into its centre from all points
The bright steel of the world; where Shakspere wrote,
And Eastcheap is, with all its memories
Of gossip Quickly, Falstaff and Prince Hal;
Where are the very stones that Milton trod,
And Johnson, Garrick, Goldsmith and the rest;
Where even now, our Dickens builds a shrine
That pilgrims thro' all time will come to see;
London! whose street names breathe such home to all:
Cheapside, the Strand, Fleet Street and Ludgate-hill,
Each name a very story in itself.
To live in London! London, the buskin'd stage
Of history, the archive of the past—
The heart, the centre of the living world!
Wake, dreamer, to your village, and your work.
| Reuben and Other Poems | |