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Dirge for Aoine and other poems

by Nora Chesson [i.e. Nora Hopper]

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ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT (LONDON)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


xxv

ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT (LONDON)

The bridge's loops were full of stars:
Across the bridge there went and came
A thousand wandering eyes of flame
And then the rattle of the cars.
A stain of orange in the smoke
Rose and turned brown and passed away.
A breath of music tossed like spray
Against the river-wall, and broke.
A new moon looked through rags of cloud;
A pigeon mourned among the trees;
And what was yesterday a breeze
Made the lamps quiver, and grew loud.
Invisible the river was:
We heard it, but we could not see.
However foul its path may be
It might have been through river grass.
Of gifts it makes to days and nights
I took three memories away:
The scent of leaves that rotting lay,
The pigeon's call, the wandering lights.