There are in Limehouse many sounds;
A hundred different sounds by day and night.
The crash and mutter of the dockside railway,
The noise of quarrel, the noise of fist on face,
My country's songs, guitars, and gramophones,
The noise of boot on stone,
The noise of women bargaining their flesh,
The noise of singers in the ships,
Sounds of threat and sounds of fear,
Blasts of hammer and steel and iron,
The scream of syren, the wail of hooter,
The clangour of angry bells,
The boom of guns, the clatter of factories,
The panic of feet, and malevolent words.
All these sounds I know, and they disturb me not.
The sound that is to me most terrible,
That snatches slumber from me,
Is the sound that is most common:
The scream of a child at night.