POETRY.
•
ON AN OLD LONDON STREET.
'MID mushroom streets that rise in a day, Smart with stucco, with painting gay, In cloistral quiet the old street stands, A relic of days that have passed away.
Quaint old gables, and corbels grim- Carven lintels—(the figures dim)—
Bricks burned red by a thousand suns,— Long lawns bordered by yew-trees trim.
This great house was built by a man Who died ere the century well began, That goes back to the second George, And that to the days of good Queen Anne.
Those ancient houses seem to keep Their souls in a pleasant lasting sleep, Lulled by the city's voice that comes Stilled to a murmur low and deep.
(Built they were in a world that made Much of rank and station and grade, And thus one fancies a still disdain In their look on the bustling streets of trade.) And standing there, one sees the men Of that old-world time appear again,
And the faded tints of the houses freshen* And the fields about them are green as then.
Men of the days of courtly grace, When the dance was the minuet's stately pace, And in a learned leisure, lovers Wrote Latin odes to a lady's face.
Days of the hoop and patch and fan, Ere vexed questions to vex began, Of rogues in filagree, polished rakes, Of woman goddess, and worshipper man.
And so this street seems reaching o'er From the quieter life of the days of yore ; Yet go but a hundred yards,—you hear The rattle of traffic, the city's roar. W. IL
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