For I know you’ll commence on the last stroke of eight
To perform all the morceaux that you know,
From “ Dorothy,” “Doris,” and “Faust up to Date,”
From Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Gounod.
O lady next door, could your glance but once fall
On the eye in which madness is lurking,
You would move your piano away from the wall,
And you’d play when the Bard wasn’t working.
A Word for the Police.
HE soldiers of our “City Guard,”
Through winter snows and summer heats,
From all the soldiers’ joys debarred,
Keep watch and ward in London streets.
For them no martial trumpets sound,
For them there waits no victor’s bay,
But on the lonely midnight round,
Unarmed, they face the fiercest fray.
Alone, they brave the brawler’s blows,
The burglar’s shot, the ruffian’s knife;
Undaunted, dare a hundred foes,
And risk, unflinching, limb and life
What heroes, then, have more than they
To London’s love and honour right,
These quiet guardians of the day,
These lonely soldiers of the night?
The Old Clock on the Stairs.
(A Ballad of Broadmoor.)
HERE standeth in my entrance-hall
A grim grandfather’s clock,
That holds my inmost heart in thrall,
And gives it many a shock.
It has a cruel, cunning face,
And two long hands that glide
Like demon fates who run a race
For ever by my side.