STREETS
AND OTHER VERSES
Douglas Goldring
Photo by Elliott & Fry.
STREETS
and other verses
By
DOUGLAS GOLDRING
LONDON
SELWYN & BLOUNT, Ltd.
21 York Buildings, W.C.2
NEW YORK
THOMAS SELTZER
5 West Fiftieth Street
To
LOVERS OF LONDON
THIS RAGGED OFFERING
Author’s Note
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.
November 1st, 1920.
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,