Time, the old humourist, has a trick to-day
Of moving landmarks and of levelling down,
Till into Town the Suburbs edge their way,
And in the Suburbs you may scent the Town.
With Mount St. thus approaching Muswell Hill,
And Clapham Common marching with the Mile,
You get a Hammersmith that fills the bill,
A Hampstead with a serious sense of style.
So this fair creature, pictured in The Row,
As one of that ‘gay adulterous world,’ [79] whose round
Is by the Serpentine, as well would show,
And might, I deem, as readily be found
On Streatham’s Hill, or Wimbledon’s, or where
Brixtonian kitchens lard the late-dining air.
VIII. BLUECOAT BOY
So went our boys when Edward Sixth, the King,
Chartered Christ’s Hospital, and died. And so
Full fifteen generations in a string
Of heirs to his bequest have had to go.
Thus Camden showed, and Barnes, and Stilling-Fleet,
And Richardson, that bade our Lovelace be;
The little Elia thus in Newgate Street;
Thus to his Genevieve young S. T. C.
With thousands else that, wandering up and down,
Quaint, privileged, liked and reputed well,
Made the great School a part of London Town
Patent as Paul’s and vital as Bow Bell:
The old School nearing exile, day by day,
To certain clay-lands somewhere Horsham way.
IX. MOUNTED POLICE
Army Reserve; a worshipper of Bobs,
With whom he stripped the smock from Candahar;
Neat as his mount, that neatest among cobs;
Whenever pageants pass, or meetings are,
He moves conspicuous, vigilant, severe,
With his Light Cavalry hand and seat and look,
A living type of Order, in whose sphere
Is room for neither Hooligan nor Hook.
For in his shadow, wheresoe’er he ride,
Paces, all eye and hardihood and grip,
The dreaded Crusher, might in his every stride
And right materialized girt at his hip;
And they, that shake to see these twain go by,
Feel that the Tec, that plain-clothes Terror, is nigh.
X. NEWS-BOY
Take any station, pavement, circus, corner,
Where men their styles of print may call or choose,
And there—ten times more on it than Jack Horner—
There shall you find him swathed in sheets of news.
Nothing can stay the placing of his wares—
Not bus, nor cab, nor dray! The very Slop,
That imp of power, is powerless! Ever he dares,
And, daring, lands his public neck and crop.
Even the many-tortured London ear,
The much-enduring, loathes his Speeshul yell,
His shriek of Winnur! But his dart and leer
And poise are irresistible. Pall Mall
Joys in him, and Mile End; for his vocation
Is to purvey the stuff of conversation.
XI. DRUM-MAJOR
Who says Drum-Major says a man of mould,
Shaking the meek earth with tremendous tread,
And pacing still, a triumph to behold,
Of his own spine at least two yards ahead!
Attorney, grocer, surgeon, broker, duke—
His calling may be anything, who comes
Into a room, his presence a rebuke
To the dejected, as the pipes and drums
Inspired his port!—who mounts his office stairs
As though he led great armies to the fight!
His bulk itself’s pure genius, and he wears
His avoirdupois with so much fire and spright
That, though the creature stands but five feet five,
You take him for the tallest He alive.