STREETS
AND OTHER VERSES

Douglas Goldring

Photo by Elliott & Fry.

STREETS
and other verses

By
DOUGLAS GOLDRING

LONDON
SELWYN & BLOUNT, Ltd.
21 York Buildings, W.C.2

NEW YORK
THOMAS SELTZER
5 West Fiftieth Street

To
LOVERS OF LONDON
THIS RAGGED OFFERING

Author’s Note

Of the pieces contained in this collection fifteen are here printed in book form for the first time. The remainder are taken from the four volumes of verse which I have issued during the past ten years, all of which are now out of print.

“A Triumphal Ode” first appeared in The Poetry Chapbook, and “Post-Georgian Poet in Search of a Master,” in Coterie.

D. G.

November 1st, 1920.

This great grey city that bred me and mine—

Supreme, mysterious, dirty and divine—

Is made up all of contrast, light and gloom.

It has green hills and parks where flowers bloom;

And shadowed pathways where young lips are shy

And warm hands tangle while the night slips by;

Deserts of humble brick, resigned and drear;

And crowded taverns, full of noise and beer;

Thronged streets where jostle theatre and hotel,

And stately terraces where rich folk dwell....

It has black alleys, and most dismal plains

Crossed by long, steady, fire-emitting trains;

Foul slums and palaces, prisons and spires

And suburbs where the jaundiced clerk expires.

But love and hope are always with us, too:

And such bright eyes, to make the sky seem blue!

All of my life I have spent up and down

Adventurously, in this unending town,

And magic things have seen at Fortune Green

And fairies loitering in a grove at Sheen;

Chelsea made crimson in the sunset’s glare;

The dawn transfiguring even Russell Square....

And I have watched, all through a summer’s day,

The brown-winged barges loaded up with hay,

And seen the heavy cargo-steamers slide

Past Woolwich Ferry, with the flowing tide;

Found joy in travel on a motor ’bus,

And glowing worlds Within the Radius!

And so, for songs, my heart must needs repeat

The cries and whispers of the London street.

Contents

“This great grey city that bred me and mine ...”

Part I

Streets

Church Street wears ever a smile, from having watched bright belles

Coming home with young men, after balls, “at all hours.”

Its villas don’t mind; they say, “Go it, young swells,

We’ve been young, too!” But Ebenezer Street glowers.

Chapel deacons live here, with side whiskers and pompous wives,

Who play hymns on Sundays, and deeply deplore sinful acts.

They’re convinced that their neighbours lead scandalous private lives;

—That you and I ought to be shot, “if one knew all the facts.”

Goreham Street’s sad. Here lives old Jones the poet—

He knew Swinburne and Watts, and has letters from “dear Charlie Keene.”

Loo Isaacs lives here as well, and poor Captain Jowett:

And the “Goreham Street Murder” was over at number thirteen.

Now George Street (E.C.) strikes a cheerful and strenuous note;

It is full of live men of business, of ’buses and noise;

Of Surbiton gents, very sleek, in top-hat and fur coat;

And earnest young clerks who perspire, and take classes for boys.

But Audley Street has a calm and a gently fastidious air!

Here I shall live when I’m rich, with my wife and my car:

When we are pleased, we’ll never shout nor ruffle our hair,

And a lift of the eyebrow will show how annoyed we are.

This is where life is lived nobly and sweetly and well:

Here are beauty, all hardly-won things, and courage and love.

Why people worship the slums and the poor so, I can never tell,

For it’s virtue and baths and good cooking go hand in glove!

Villas

(Leytonstone)

All down Jamaica Road there are small bow windows

Jutting out neighbourly heads in the street,

And in each sits, framed, a quiet old woman.

These watch the couples who pass or meet,

And some have borne sons, now ageing men;

And most have seen death in their narrow house;

Heard wedding bells for their grandchildren;

Seen boys seek the bar for a last carouse;

And heard wives cry, through thin plaster walls,

And watched babies laugh in the sun, outside.

They treasure things up in their withered old hearts,

And always they sit looking out, with eyes wide.

These queer old women, they watch, as they sit,

Through the whole long day, what happens beneath

They miss not a thing. Sometimes they knit,

And sometimes dream a little, holding their breath.

1910.

Cherry Gardens

(Rotherhithe)

My man fell in, when he was drunk;

They’d thrown him out o’ the “King’s Head.”

From Wapping stairs he fell, and sunk.

He was my man; he’s dead.

On the cold slab, a sight to see,

They’ve laid him out—poor handsome chap—

In Rotherhithe’s new mortuary.

His head should dent my lap,

But I mayn’t warm him where he lies,

Because I have no ring to show—

Yet I’ve his bruises on my eyes;

And bore his child a month ago.

Mare Street, N.E.

In Mare Street, Hackney, Sunday nights,

My Jim he’d search for souls to save:

Beneath one of them showman’s lights

He’d stand up white and brave.

“And who’s for Jesus now?” he’d call,

“And who’s for Love that’s strong?

Repent, believe: there’s Heaven for all

That turns and flees from wrong....”

I wish no harm to my poor Jim,

But God strike Lizzie dead!

’Twas cruel of her to lead the hymn,

With me laid ill, in bed.

They’re gone—last month—to Leytonstone;

Jim has a pulpit there;

So I’m left hungering here alone,

While she joins him in pray’r.

Kingsland Road, N.E.

As I went walking down the Kingsland Road

I met an old man, with a very heavy load;

He had a crooked nose, and one tooth in his head,

And as I went by him he stopped me, and said:

I’m an old, old man

With a very heavy sack—

But when I was a young ’un

I’d a heavier pack.

Now my eyes are all dim,

But my heart’s full of fun;

Oh! heavy was my heart

When my eyes were young.

I’d a cartload of trouble

All along o’ my wife.

—It was trying to be happy

Made a Hell of my life!

I’m an old, old man

With a gert heavy sack—

But when I was a young ’un

It nigh broke my back!

When I looked in his eyes I saw that they were blue,

And the skin of his face it was wrinkled through and through,

He had big hairy ears, and his beard it was white:

And twittering and laughing he passed into the night.

Living-In

(Brixton Rise)

Through the small window comes the roar

Of all the world of light outside:

It is not midnight, yet our door

Is shut on us, and we are tied.

What is he doing now—my dear?

I left him all on fire for me:

Will he be true? Oh God, I fear

He’ll buy what I would give him free!

Newport Street, E.

Down Newport Street, last Sunday night,

Bill stabbed his sweetheart in the breast:

She screamed and fell, a dreadful sight,

And Bill strode on like one possest.

O Love’s a curse to them that’s young

’Twas all because of love and drink;

Why couldn’t the silly hold her tongue,

Or stop, before she spoke, to think?

She played with fire, did pretty Nell,

So Bill must hang ere summer’s here:

Christ, what a crowd are sent to Hell

Through love, and poverty and beer!

The Spanish Sailor

(Charlton Vale)

Through lines of lights the river glides,

Bestrewn with many a green-eyed ship,

And swiftly down the slinking tides

All night the heavy steamers slip.

Bright shone the moon when he slunk down,

A-sailing to some foreign parts,

Past Greenwich and past Gravesend Town,

And caring nought for broken hearts.

’Twas in July. He kissed and fled:

He stole my all and slipt to sea,

And now I wish that I was dead

—Or that his arms were crushing me.

Outside Charing Cross

(2.35 p.m.)

Of course she’s there to see him off—

Trust her for that. Tears in her eyes, enough to be becoming,

The latest furs, then sympathy, for tea!

And if he’s hit, my own, she’ll hear it first.

She’ll be the one to fly to France,

To bore the Doctor and the Nurse

And drive him mad—if he still lives.

But I, who love him so my heart grows faint,

Who’d gladly bleed to death to save him pain,

Must wait and read the news in some blurred list....

Then, ever the grinning mask, day in, day out,

While she, hard as a stone,

Wears stylish black and tells her lover’s son

How “Father died a hero in the War!”

1915.

Saloon Bar, Railway Arms

(Waterloo Road)

The Sergeant-Major Speaks

Now you get out, you lousy tart!

Outside’s my lawful wife and kids

Turned up to watch the regiment depart,

And all dressed neat, in black.

Why such as you’s orl right, maybe,

In time of peace. And I’ll allow

We’ve ’ad some fun, been on the spree—

But now, you slut, it’s War.

Think o’ your Gord! That’s wot I say.

The Missus there’s respectable—

’Er and the kids. If you don’t run away

I’ll wring yer neck, yer cow! ’Ear me?

You ought to be ashamed of yerself,

Turning up like this and making trouble!

Come on, chuck it! Don’t ’owl. Give us a slobber then....

Now ’op it—poor little swine.

Mrs. Skeffyngton Calhus

Mrs. Skeffyngton Calhus has three sons killed in the war,

(But to see her brave, sweet face, you would never guess it.)

She has “given” some nephews as well, and cousins galore;

“And if one feels sad,” she says, “one ought to suppress it.”

She belongs to two Funds, some Committees, and several clubs,

Where she states what she’s done for England, with modest pride;

And she works like a black at recruiting outside the pubs;

And is always ready to tell “how her dear ones died.”

There were three of them—Bob, Jack and Arthur—handsome men;

So good to their mother, so courteous, and brave, and kind!

Well—she bred them for England! It was God’s will, Amen;

For her sorrow on earth, a reward in Heaven she would find.

But Lily (the third from the left in “The Beauty-girl’s Glide”)

Belonged to no clubs or committees, wasn’t noble at all;

And the night of Jack’s death, in the wings, she broke down and cried

Till her face was a sight and she couldn’t go on for the Ball.

She hadn’t bred him for England, nor looked for rewards “up above”;

He was all that she cared for on earth; and she railed at Fate

And called down a curse on those who had slain her love.

The “for England” touch she couldn’t appreciate.

But Lily, of course, was only a simple soul.

She lacked Mrs. Calhus’s exquisite self-control.

Little Houses

(Hill Street, Knightsbridge)

Little, houses, though prim, have often a secret glance

That can speak to a heart outside—as one speaks to me—

And even their close-drawn curtains seem to enhance

The charm of their sly reserve, of their mystery....

I like to walk through the Square to your quiet street,

And look at your windows—with just a suspicion of pride—

For I may go in, when I dare, and sit at your feet,

But the people who pass can’t guess what it’s like inside.

They haven’t a notion—but I see your small armchair