Pennyfields and Poplar and Chinatown for me!
Stately-moving cut-throats and many-coloured mysteries,
Never were such lusty things for London lads to see!
On the evil twilight—rose and star and silver—
Steals a song that long ago in Singapore they sang:
Fragrant of spices, of incense and opium,
Cinnamon and aconite, the betel and the bhang.
Three miles straight lies lily-clad Belgravia,
Thin-lipped ladies and padded men and pale.
But here are turbaned princes and velvet-glancing gentlemen,