AN ODE TO SPRING IN THE METROPOLIS.

Is this the Seine?

And am I altogether wrong

About the brain,

Dreaming I hear the British tongue?

Dear Heaven! what a rhyme!

And yet‘ tis all as good

As some that I have fashioned in my time,

Like bud and wood;

And on the other hand you could n't have a more precise or neater

Metre.

Is this, I ask, the Seine?

And yonder sylvan lane,

Is it the Bois?

Ma foi!

Comme elle est chic, my Paris, my grisette!

Yet may I not forget

That London still remains the missus

Of this Narcissus.

No, no!‘ tis not the Seine!

It is the artificial mere

That permeates St. James's Park.

The air is bosom-shaped and clear;

And, Himmel! do I hear the lark,

The good old Shelley-Wordsworth lark?

Even now, I prithee,

Hark

Him hammer

On Heaven's harmonious stithy,

Dew-drunken — like my grammar!

And O the trees!

Beneath their shade the hairless coot

Waddles at ease,

Hushing the magic of his gurgling beak;

Or haply in Tree-worship leans his cheek

Against their blind

And hoary rind,

Observing how the sap

Comes humming upwards from the tap-

Root!

Thrice happy, hairless coot!

And O the sun!

See, see, he shakes

His big red hands at me in wanton fun!

A glorious image that! it might be Blake's;

As in my critical capacity I took occasion to remark elsewhere,

When heaping praise

On this exceptionally happy phrase,

Although I made it up myself.

But I and Blake, we really constitute a pair,

Each being rather like an artless woodland elf.

And O the stars! I cannot say

I see a star just now,

Not at this time of day;

But anyhow

The stars are all my brothers;

( This verse is shorter than the others ).

O Constitution Hill!

( This verse is shorter still ).

Ah! London, London in the Spring!

You are, you know you are,

So full of curious sights,

Especially by nights.

From gilded bar to gilded bar

Youth goes his giddy whirl,

His heart fulfilled of Music-Hall,

His arm fulfilled of girl!

I frankly call

That last effect a perfect pearl!

I know it's

Not given to many poets

To frame so fair a thing

As this of mine, of Spring.

Indeed, the world grows Lilliput

All but

A precious few, the heirs of utter godlihead,

Who wear the yellow flower of blameless bodlihead!

And they, with Laureates dead, look down

On smaller fry unworthy of the crown,

Mere mushroom men, puff-balls that advertise

And bravely think to brush the skies.

Great is advertisement with little men!

Moi, qui vous parle, L - G-ll — nn -,

Have told them so;

I ought to know!