Produced by WebRover, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) STREETS AND OTHER VERSES [Illustration: 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 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 ..._” PAGE I STREETS 17