V. H. Friedlaender

OUT from the house to the street—

From the colored and sounding house

To the thin grey shape of the street as it steals

Before one’s feet

Like a mouse.

A wavering lamp competes

With the darkness; from vacancy spring

Tall trees by the pavement’s edge, till it wheels

To the high street’s

Beckoning.

The ’bus … Up a phantom stair,

And alone on a spectral seat;

And the endless purr of the wheels as we go

(To a bell somewhere)

Down the street.

And the street is a tale that is told;

And a wraith is London town;

Under ochre seas—oh, far below!—

Is her glory, her gold

Gone down!

From shadows among the shades,

In a city that once has been,

Here a muted voice swims half into ken,

There a white face fades

Half seen.

And still the drone of the ’bus,

Like a coma, a swoon, a drug:

“Dead, dead—down, down—among all dead men;

And your grave with us

Is dug …”

Out from the sulphurous soul,

Out from the tortured heart

Of the purgatorial city, where death

Is the goal

And the better part.

The journey’s end?—to arrive?

How queer, how almost pain

To stretch stiff limbs and recover breath—

To come alive

Again!