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| POETS are singing the whole world over | |
| Of May in melody, joys for June; | |
| Dusting their feet in the careless clover, | |
| And filling their hearts with the blackbird’s tune. | |
| The “brown bright nightingale” strikes with pity | 5 |
| The sensitive heart of a count or clown; | |
| But where is the song for our leafy city, | |
| And where the rhymes for our lovely town? | |
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| “O for the Thames, and its rippling reaches, | |
| Where almond rushes, and breezes sport! | 10 |
| Take me a walk under Burnham Beeches; | |
| Give me a dinner at Hampton Court!” | |
| Poets, be still, though your hearts I harden; | |
| We ’ve flowers by day and have scents at dark, | |
| The limes are in leaf in the cockney garden, | 15 |
| And lilacs blossom in Regent’s Park. | |
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| “Come for a blow,” says a reckless fellow, | |
| Burned red and brown by passionate sun; | |
| “Come to the downs, where the gorse is yellow; | |
| The season of kisses has just begun! | 20 |
| Come to the fields where bluebells shiver, | |
| Hear cuckoo’s carol, or plaint of dove; | |
| Come for a row on the silent river; | |
| Come to the meadows and learn to love!” | |
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| Yes, I will come when this wealth is over | 25 |
| Of softened color and perfect tone— | |
| The lilac ’s better than fields of clover; | |
| I ’ll come when the blossoming May has flown. | |
| When dust and dirt of a trampled city | |
| Have dragged the yellow laburnum down, | 30 |
| I ’ll take my holiday—more ’s the pity— | |
| And turn my back upon London town. | |
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| Margaret! am I so wrong to love it, | |
| This misty town that your face shines through? | |
| A crown of blossom is waved above it; | 35 |
| But heart and life of the whirl—’t is you! | |
| Margaret! pearl! I have sought and found you; | |
| And, though the paths of the wind are free, | |
| I ’ll follow the ways of the world around you, | |
| And build my nest on the nearest tree! | 40 |
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