But still it was a lovely thing
Through the grey months to wait for Spring
With the birds that go a-gypsying
In the parks till the blue seas call.
And next to these, you used to care
For the lions in Trafalgar Square,
Who’ll stand and speak for London when her bell of Judgment tolls—
And the gulls at Westminster there were
The old sea-captains’ souls.
To-day again the brown tide splashes, step by step, the river stair,