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(PREHISTORIC)
TWENTY bridges from Tower to Kew | |
| Wanted to know what the River knew, | |
| For they were young and the Thames was old, | |
| And this is the tale that the River told:— | |
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| “I walk my beat before London Town, | 5 |
| Five hours up and seven down. | |
| Up I go till I end my run | |
| At Tide-end-town, which is Teddington. | |
| Down I come with the mud in my hands | |
| And plaster it over the Maplin Sands. | 10 |
| But I’d have you know that these waters of mine | |
| Were once a branch of the River Rhine, | |
| When hundreds of miles to the East I went | |
| And England was joined to the Continent. | |
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| I remember the bat-winged lizard-birds, | 15 |
| The Age of Ice and the mammoth herds, | |
| And the giant tigers that stalked them down | |
| Through Regent’s Park into Camden Town. | |
| And I remember like yesterday | |
| The earliest Cockney who came my way, | 20 |
| When he pushed through the forest that lined the Strand, | |
| With paint on his face and a club in his hand. | |
| He was death to feather and fin and fur, | |
| He trapped my beavers at Westminster. | |
| He netted my salmon, he hunted my deer, | 25 |
| He killed my herons off Lambeth Pier. | |
| He fought his neighbour with axes and swords, | |
| Flint or bronze, at my upper fords, | |
| While down at Greenwich, for slaves and tin, | |
| The tall Phoenician ships stole in, | 30 |
| And North Sea war-boats, painted and gay, | |
| Flashed like dragon-flies Erith way; | |
| And Norseman and Negro and Gaul and Greek | |
| Drank with the Britons in Barking Creek, | |
| And life was gay, and the world was new, | 35 |
| And I was a mile across at Kew! | |
| But the Roman came with a heavy hand, | |
| And bridged and roaded and ruled the land, | |
| And the Roman left and the Danes blew in— | |
| And that’s where your history-books begin!” | 40 |
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