Classic Poem

I

Bluff and burly and splendid
Thro' roaring traffic-tides,
By secret lightnings attended
The land-ship hisses and glides.
And I sit on its bridge and I watch and I dream
While the world goes gallantly by,
With all its crowded houses and its colored shops a-stream
Under the June-blue sky,
Heigh, ho!
Under the June-blue sky.


II

There's a loafer at the kerb with a sulphur-coloured pile
Of "Lights! Lights! Lights!" to sell;
And a flower-girl there with some lilies and a smile
By the gilt swing-doors of a drinking hell,
Where the money is rattling loud and fast,
And I catch one glimpse as the ship swings past
Of a woman with a babe at her breast
Wrapped in a ragged shawl;
She is drinking away with the rest,
And the sun shines over it all,
Heigh, ho!
The sun shines over it all!


III

And a barrel-organ is playing,
Somewhere, far away,
Abide with me, and The world is gone a-maying,
And What will the policeman say?
There's a glimpse of the river down an alley by a church,
And the barges with their tawny-coloured sails,
And a grim and grimy coal-wharf where the London pigeons perch
And flutter and spread their tails,
Heigh, ho!
Flutter and spread their tails.


IV

O, what does it mean, all the pageant and the pity,
The waste and the wonder and the shame?
I am riding tow'rds the sunset thro' the vision of a City
Which we cloak with the stupor of a name!
I am riding thro' ten thousand thousand tragedies and terrors,
Ten million heavens that save and hells that damn;
And the lightning draws my car tow'rds the golden evening star;
And--They call it only "riding on a tram,"
Heigh, ho!
They call it only "riding on a tram."