Two Songs
By John Davidson
I — London
Athwart the sky a lowly sigh
From west to east the sweet wind carried;
The sun stood still on Primrose Hill;
His light in all the city tarried:
The clouds on viewless columns bloomed
Like smouldering lilies unconsumed.
“Oh, sweetheart, see, how shadowy,
Of some occult magician’s rearing,
Or swung in space of Heaven’s grace,
Dissolving, dimly reappearing,
Afloat upon ethereal tides
St. Paul above the city rides!”
A rumour broke through the thin smoke
Enwreathing Abbey, Tower, and Palace,
The parks, the squares, the thoroughfares,
The million-peopled lanes and alleys,
An ever-muttering prisoned storm,
The heart of London beating warm.
II-Down-a-down
Foxes peeped from out their dens,
Day grew pale and olden;
Blackbirds, willow-warblers, wrens,
Staunched their voices golden.
High, oh high, from the opal sky,
Shouting against the dark,
“Why, why, why must the day go by?”
Fell a passionate lark.
But the cuckoos beat their brazen gongs,
Sounding, sounding so;
And the nightingales poured in starry songs
A galaxy below.
Slowly tolling the vesper bell
Ushered the stately night.
Down-a-down in a hawthorn dell
A boy and a girl and love’s delight.