Look! you may see them everywhere— Laughing in ball-rooms in Mayfair, At tea at Ranelagh, or walking On Sunday in Hyde Park and talking The latest nonsense! What a sight, In frocks adorable and costly! At Epping too (East-enders mostly) You’ll see good London girls at play; On Hampstead Heath—and every day They troop in crowds up Chancery Lane.... I’ll own, some Brixton girls are plain, The Ealing girls are proud and silly, They’re a queer lot in Piccadilly And—personally—I can’t stand The huzzies who infest the Strand. But in the bulk, far though you roam, You’ll find no girls like ours at home. Then what good cheer is London cheer When welcoming the infant year; On Derby day; or Christmas even; Or when Aunt Jane pops off to Heaven! In friendly restaurant or grill You drink your bottle, eat your fill, Digest, while watching Russian dancers, Drive next to supper at some pub, Then mingle with the rag-time prancers, In a night café—called a club. And so to bed, should it be June, While the birds sing their morning tune And the sun flushes all the East And tips with rose chimney and roof. Heigho! the ending of the feast— The kiss good-bye, and no reproof! I cannot praise as I would praise The mother of my nights and days. Mine only in rough notes to sing Songs of the streets from which I spring. _I, the son of London men,_ _Give thanks to London once again._ _Here was I born and I will die_ _Under this friendly leaden sky—_ _Like grandfer’s grandfer, so will I._ _Part II_ _Highbrow Hill_ Londonian Athens, I, thy hill sublime Will celebrate, in my unfeeling rhyme! In Grave Tannhauser Street and New Thought Lane, Parsifal Avenue, and Shavian Road Dwells High Intelligence, with massive brain, Bearing like Atlas an almighty load— The burden of decision: “Yes” or “No”?— Can Nichols stay, or Vachel Lindsay go? Here dwells the last arbitrament of art. How great is _he_? Is that one large or small? Here is the wanton poet made to smart, Here the uncurbed romancer takes his fall; Here they deal faithfully with Squiff and Noggs And here (for dinners) puff Sir Roller Loggs. Fresh every day, when dawn makes Highbrow Hill Softened and rosy, blithe and gentle and sweet, The Intellectuals their quivers fill With poisonous darts, to fire from safe retreat. Biffkin and Briggs and Solomon _and_ Snooks Must be put down, for they lead _awful lives_, And any simple souls who read their books Might kiss their housemaids or desert their wives. Earth must be purged, be cleaned from this disease! (And England does what Highbrow Hill decrees.) _Post-Georgian Poet in Search of a Master_