Love in London
In London town men love and hate,
And find Death tragic soon or late,
Just in the old unreasoning way,
As if they breathed the warmer day
In Athens when the gods were great.
Mine is the town by Thames’s spate,
And so it chanced I found my fate,
One of my fates, that is to say—
In London town.
The whole world comes to those who wait;
Mine came and went with one year’s date.
Pity it made so short a stay!
The sweetest face, the sweetest sway
That ever Love did consecrate
In London town.
Justin Huntly McCarthy.