SAPPHICS ON TRAFFIC.
(A Lover of London to a Weary Would-be Wayfarer.)
Lover of London.
Would-be wayfarer! little think the proud ones
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike—
Road, what hard work 'tis trying all day for Pimlico,
Or Piccadilly.
Tell me, wayfarer, how these Omnibuses,
Growlers, and Hansoms, carts and vans of Pickford,
Slithering slowly over the slippery asphalte,
Manage a journey!
Lingering loitering is not Locomotion!
Trickling slow trailing through attenuate thoroughfares,
Paroxysms of crawl and block alternate,
Call you these Traffic!
Civic Would-be Wayfarer.
Traffic? Why bless you! We have none worth calling so;
'Tisn't a thing expected in London City.
This sluggish crawling varied with stoppage is all that
We may attain to.
What with the narrow labyrinths miscalled thoroughfares,
What with the sewers and gas, the water and telegraphs,
Traffic is simply a species of lingering agony,
In the Metropolis!
Something is always "up," Sir, pipe-layers, paviors,
Stirrers of most malodorous witch-broth cauldrons,
Makers of shindy and stench, with poor old Babylon,
Play up old Gooseberry!
Courts and Councils, Committees and Correspondents,
Always reporting, writing, and railing concerning it;
Nothing comes of it all save chaos more complicate,
And higher ratings.
Cheapside, Fleet Street, Strand, all semi-impassable,
Scarcely a "right-away" road in all the Capital;
As for the "affluents" of our so-called arteries,
They are chock-blockical!
Saloman wisely says the traffic of London
Isn't mere local matter—ought to be national.
Hope we may get some good from wisdom of Saloman!—
Hardly expect it, though.
Far too long a prey to the power of Bumbledom!
Hope too long deferred has made me a Pessimist.
Traffic? Merits the name as much as these stanzas do
That of true Sapphics, Sir!
Lover of London.
You back such bunglers? I would see them blowed first—
Duffers no civic spirit can rouse to competence,
Paltry, preposterous, pettifogging, pottering,
Paunchy Panjandrums!