England and Yesterday

<h2>IN A LONDON STREET.</h2> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Though sea and mount have beauty, and this but what it can,</div> <div class="verse">Thrice fairer than their life the life here battling in the van,</div> <div class="verse">The tragic gleam, the mist and grime,</div> <div class="verse">The dread endearing stain of time,</div> <div class="verse">The sullied heart of man.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Mine is the clotted sunshine, a bubble in the sky,</div> <div class="verse">That where it dare not enter, steals in shrouded passion by;</div> <div class="verse">And mine the saffron river-sails,</div> <div class="verse">And every plane-tree that avails</div> <div class="verse">To rest an urban eye;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The bells, the dripping gables, the tavern’s corner glare</div> <div class="verse">The cabs in firefly dartings, the barrel-organ’s air,</div> <div class="verse">Where one by one, or two by two,</div> <div class="verse">The hatless babes are dancing through</div> <div class="verse">The gutters of the square.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Not on Sicilian headlands of song and old desire,</div> <div class="verse">My spirit chose her pleasure-house, but in the London mire:</div> <div class="verse">Long, long alone she loves to pace,</div> <div class="verse">And find a music in the place</div> <div class="verse">As in a minster choir.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">O deeds of awe and rapture! O names of legendry!</div> <div class="verse">Still is it most of joy within your altered pale to be,</div> <div class="verse">Whose very ills I fain would slake,</div> <div class="verse">Mine angels are, and help to make</div> <div class="verse">In hell, a heaven for me.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />