_Gay shops, stately palaces, bustle and breeze,_ _The whirring of wheels and the murmur of trees;_ _By night or by day, whether noisy or stilly,_ _Whatever my mood is—I love Piccadilly._ Thus carolled FRED LOCKER, just sixty years back, In a year (’57) when the outlook was black, And even to-day the war-weariest Willie Recovers his spirits in dear Piccadilly. We haven’t the belles with their Gainsborough hats, Or the Regency bucks with their wondrous cravats, But now that the weather no longer is chilly There’s much to enchant us in New Piccadilly. As I sit in my club and partake of my “ration,” No longer I’m vexed by the follies of fashion; The dandified Johnnies so precious and silly— You seek them in vain in the New Piccadilly. The men are alert and upstanding and fit, They’ve most of them done or they’re doing their bit; With the eye of a hawk and the stride of a gillie They add a new lustre to Old Piccadilly. And the crippled but gay-hearted heroes in blue Are a far finer product than wicked “old Q,” Who ought to have lived in a prison on skilly Instead of a palace in mid Piccadilly. The women are splendid, so quiet and strong, As with resolute purpose they hurry along— Excepting the flappers, who chatter as shrilly As parrots let loose to distract Piccadilly. Thus I muse as I watch with a reverent eye The New Generation sweep steadily by, And judge him an ass or a born Silly Billy Who’d barter the New for the Old Piccadilly. TO “MARTIN ROSS” (_After reading “Irish Memories.”_) Two Irish cousins greet us here From BUSHE “the silver-tongued” descended, Whose lives for close on thirty year Were indistinguishably blended; Scorning the rule that holds for cooks, They pooled their brains and joined their forces, And wrote a dozen gorgeous books On men and women, hounds and horses. They superseded _Handley Cross_; They glorified the “hunting fever”; They purged their pages of the dross, While bettering the fun, of LEVER; With many a priceless turn of phrase They stirred us to Homeric laughter, When painting Ireland in the days Before Sinn Fein bewitched and “strafed” her. With them we watched good _Major Yeates_ Contending with litigious peasants, With “hidden hands” within his gates, With claims for foxes and for pheasants; We saw _Leigh Kelway_ drop his chin— That precious English super-tripper— In shocked amazement drinking in The lurid narrative of _Slipper_. _Philippa’s_ piercing peacock squeals, Uttered in moments of expansion; The grime and splendour of the meals Of _Mrs. Knox_ and of her mansion; The secrets of horse-coping lore, The loves of _Sally_ and of _Flurry_— All these delights and hundreds more Are not forgotten in a hurry.