LIX. IN THE STRAND AFTER LONG ABSENCE—1875.
I
From Charing Cross to Temple Bar,
Again I pace the well-known way;
All things that were, and things that are,
Arise before me as I stray:
True, there are changes in the street—
Time will demolish brick and stone,
But still, unless my senses cheat,
'Tis the same Strand I've ever known.
II
'Tis forty years since first I stood,
A boy with meditative stare,
And gazed in melancholy mood
At Percy's Lion from the Square.
Still on the house-top, tail erect,
It stands unharmed by lapse of Time,
While I look on and scarce suspect
That I'm no longer in my prime.
III
I miss old Warren's blacking shop—
Where has the eternal Warren gone?
Puffs flourish in perennial crop,
But none puffs Warren—no, not one.
Times change. And though the public still
Is gulled by puffers as before,
It takes its ointment and its pill
And uses blacking as of yore.
IV
Yes! Warren's gone—but neighbour Coutts
Still opes and shuts his dingy hall,
And seems to flourish, stems and roots,
And stands, whoever else may fall.
Once, as I passed, a foolish lad,
I thought a cheque my soul would bless,
Ten pounds a fortune, five not bad—
Five hundred now would please me less.
V
And Weiss, the cutler, lives he yet?
I know not, memory chills and fades;
But one thing I shall ne'er forget,
That knife with thrice a hundred blades.
There in the window, still it stands,
Cheap, I'd have thought it, I avow,
If purchased by a baron's lands—
I'd not give ninepence for it now.
VI
And lower down, a little space,
That pickle shop I knew so well,
That filled the circumjacent place
With pungent, yet most fragrant smell.
It still drives on the ancient trade,
But Burgess? Let me not be told—
I never knew him, I'm afraid—
But if he lives, he's wondrous old!
VII
Here stand, and threaten long to stand,
The two obstructions of the town,
St. Clement's and St. Mary Strand,
Why don't they sell, and pull them down,
And build them rearward, not too near?
Time gallops, but Reform is slow,
Or Demolition's fatal sheer
Would have swept o'er them long ago.
VIII
But who comes here? an ancient Jew,
A dealer in rejected wares,
And old, old garments good as new,
Or better as he oft declares.
In times gone by, I've met him oft,
And watched him in his daily walk,
Enticing, prying, speaking soft,
And winning custom by his talk.
IX
Joyous he was, and fair to see,
Oiled, prim, and neat, and jewelled much;
And now he must be seventy-three,
Or seventy—and he needs a crutch.
Good gracious! am I then so old
As to remember this old muff?
My blood is warm, and his is cold!
I'll think no longer,—I've enough!
