| AH, London! London! our delight, | |
| Great flower that opens but at night, | |
| Great City of the midnight sun, | |
| Whose day begins when day is done. | |
| |
| Lamp after lamp against the sky | 5 |
| Opens a sudden beaming eye, | |
| Leaping alight on either hand, | |
| The iron lilies of the Strand. | |
| |
| Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover, | |
| With jeweled eyes, to catch the lover; | 10 |
| The streets are full of lights and loves, | |
| Soft gowns, and flutter of soiled doves. | |
| |
| The human moths about the light | |
| Dash and cling close in dazed delight, | |
| And burn and laugh, the world and wife, | 15 |
| For this is London, this is life! | |
| |
| Upon thy petals butterflies, | |
| But at thy root, some say, there lies, | |
| A world of weeping trodden things, | |
| Poor worms that have not eyes or wings. | 20 |
| |
| From out corruption of their woe | |
| Springs this bright flower that charms us so, | |
| Men die and rot deep out of sight | |
| To keep this jungle-flower bright. | |
| |
| Paris and London, World-Flowers twain | 25 |
| Wherewith the World-Tree blooms again, | |
| Since Time hath gathered Babylon, | |
| And withered Rome still withers on. | |
| |
| Sidon and Tyre were such as ye, | |
| How bright they shone upon the tree! | 30 |
| But Time hath gathered, both are gone, | |
| And no man sails to Babylon. | |
