SONGS OF LONDON TOWN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2914, 19 January 1910, Page 89

SONGS OF LONDON TOWN.

Br Jkssttc Mackat.

lll.—(Concluded.) London the Terrible is . an incubus on the soul vibrative: 0 cruel lamps of London, if tears your light could drown, Your victims’ eyes would weep them, O Lights of Lonodn Town! Its very being is a judgment on the green land that embowers its cosmopolitan, vastness. Our own poet, Arthur Adams, asks and answers trie riddle of London thus: This once was meadowland. « , > The blame ? Man, like a fallen angel, came; Where his foot pressed it seared and slew, And this grey fungus rose in shame. St. John Adcock, in his “Song of Shadows,” sees in it a vast concourse of Dopp 1 egangere, of phan toms, each tracking his human other self through the doomed streets : The city is weird with shadows, In the shine of a sunny day You 'may see them darken the pavements, Furtive and hushed and gray. a a • • ‘ • Q And still when the day is sunless They haunt the heart of the din, They dance at the heels of pleasure. They run before folly and sin. Love and honour , and beauty They follow without a sound— If the sun shine out but a moment You may see them darken the ground. And the glory and gold we garner, What is it when all is done? Every man has his shadow, Though ho walks in the shade or the sun. But the distinction that has been drawn between the “Londoner” of circumstance and the “Londonist” of choice is nowhere more marked than in verse. Rhymes of urban felicities, tripping “vers de societe” are trolled here and there to drown, as it were, the subterranean murmur of world-tragedy below. Such a rhymer is Henry Leigh in this “Cockney’s Evening Song” : Day brought us trouble, but night brings us peace; Morning brought sorrow, but Eve bids it cease. Gaslight and Gaiety beam for a, while; Pleasure and Paraffin lend us a smile. Temples of Mammon are voiceless again— Lonely policemen inherit Mark Lane; Silent is Lothbury—quiet Coruliill— Babel of Commerce, thine echoes are still. Out on the glimmer weak Hesperus yields! Gas for the cities and stars foi' the fields. Daisies and buttercups, do as yc list; 1 and my friend arc for music and whist. The joy of living bubbles out again in tine allied strain of Captain Charles Morris, the bard of the man about town; In London I never know what I’d be at, Enraptured with this and enchanted with that; I’m wild with the sweets of Variety's plan. And Life seems a blessing too happy for man. In Town we’ve no use for the skies overhead, For when the sun rises then 'we go to bed; And as for that old-fashioned virgin the moon, She shines out of season, like satin in June. In Town let me live then, in Town let me die; For in truth I can’t relish the country, not I. If one must have a villa in summer to dwell. Oh. give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall! This is honest jingle of its sort, no poetry, like nine-tenths of the London

| verse current. Bat a nobler chord is ! struck by the London lover, though it is I lover-hood, not Londonism, that speaks. I Something of the proper gold chinks j lightly in these lines of 'Amy Levy : i Yvhat ails tny senses thus to cheat? | What ia it ails the place, I That all the people in the street j Should wear one woman’s race? I The London trees are dusty brown Beneath the summer sky; My love, she dwells in London town, Kor leaves it in July. Aiid who cries out on crowd and mart? Who prates of stream and sea? The summer in the City’s heart— That is enough for me. And Clement Scott banters aside the invitation of the well-meaning country, friend who bids his hero “ Come to the fields when bluebells shiver, ’Midst cuckoo’s carol or plaint of dove; Come for a row on the silent river, Come to the meadws and learn to love!”Yes. I will come when this wealth is over Of softened colour and perfect tone; The lilac’s better than fields, of clover — I’ll come when blossoming May has flown. When dust and dirt of a trampled city Have dragged the. yellow laburnum down. I’ll take my holiday—more’s the pity— And turn my hack upon London Town, Margaret! Am I so wrong to love it, This misty town that your face shines through ? A crown of blossom is waved above it; But, heart and life of the world, ’tis you! Margaret! Pearl! I have sought and found you; And though the paths of the world are free, I’ll follow the ways of the world around you. And build my nest on the nearest tree! And there is a glint of magic iB Henley’s “On the Way to Kew” On the way to Kew, By the river old and grey, Where in the Long Ago We laughed and loitered so, I met a ghost to-day, A ghost that told of you, A ghost of low replies And sweet inscrutable eyes. Coming up from Richmond, As you used to do. By the river old and grey The enchanted Long Ago Murmured and smiled anew. On the way to Kew March had the laugh of May, And bare boughs looked aglow, And old immortal words Sang in my breast like birds, Coming up from .Richmond As I used with you. But perhaps there was .never a sweeter London love song than Robert Buchanan’s “Langley Lane” —that child-idyl of romance that could never find earthly, fruitage : In all the land, range up, range down. Is there ever a place so pleasant and sweet As Langley Lane, in London town, Just out of the bustle of square anf street ? i Little white cottages, all in a row, Gardens where bachelors’ buttons grow. Swallows’ nests in roof and wall, And up above the still blue sky, Where the woolly-white clouds go sailing bj I ,' I seem to be able to see it all! And Fanny, who lives just over the way. Comes running many a time each day. With her little hand’s touch so warm and kind; And I smile and talk, with the sun on my oheek, And the little live hand seems to stir and speak,— For Fanny is dumb and I am blind. Hath not the dear little, hand a tongue, When it stirs on my palm for the lovC of me? Do I not know she is pretty and young? Hath not my soul an eye to see? And ns long as we sit in the music and light, t She is happy to keep God’s sight, And I am happy to keep God’s sound. Though if ever Lord God should grant md a' prayer . (I know the fancy is only vain), I should pray: Just once, when the weathes is fair. To see little Fanny and Langley Lane. Indeed, the spell of London waJ curiously deep on that wild rebel and most human poet, Buchanan, who, as a poet, never not his own from tlie land ho j adopted. Here is a- masterful etching, | done in fine irregular lines •. i Spires of the city gleam, houses loom largo in the grey light. Yonder a flag is flung out, yonder a casement shines clear. And lo! St. Paul’s, like a crag, rounded dewy with daylight, Shines in the sun, while below it nia-sts thick as reeds on a mere Rise from the dark flowing Thames. For a good-bye verse of London Beauti- | ful. what trills'more hamitingly than this spring song of Alfred hioyes, than whom, no singer living now has more completely ■| preserved the magic of the English lyrn ; before England, unhappily for her lyric’ fame, became to all intents the world Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, I in lilac-time, Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn t faf from London!) And you shall. wander hand in hand wit* love in summer’s wonderland; _ Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn’t- fat from London!) : The chorry trees are seas of blo'om, and sofi perfume, and sweet perfume. The cherry trees are sens of bloom (and, 0%. so near to London!) . And there, they say. when dawn is high, and. all the world’s a blaze of sky, _ The cuckoo, though he’s very shy, will sing a song for London.