Chapter I: Front Matter

STREETS

AND OTHER VERSES

_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 are here printed in book form for the first time. The remainder are taken from the four volumes of verse which I have issued during the past ten years, all of which are now out of print.

“A Triumphal Ode” first appeared in _The Poetry Chapbook_, 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,_
_The brown-winged barges loaded up with hay,_
_And seen the heavy cargo-steamers slide_
_Past Woolwich Ferry, with the flowing tide;_
_Found joy in travel on a motor ’bus,_
_And glowing worlds Within the Radius!_

_And so, for songs, my heart must needs repeat_
_The cries and whispers of the London street._

Contents

“_This great grey city that bred me and mine ..._”

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