In Partibus  4112

The ‘buses run to Battersea,
[tab]The ‘buses run to Bow,
The ‘buses run to Westbourne Grove,
[tab]And Notting Hill also;
But I am sick of London Town,
[tab]From Shepherd’s Bush to Bow.

I see the smut upon my cuff,
[tab]And feel him on my nose;
I cannot leave my window wide
[tab]When gentle Zephyr blows,
Because he brings disgusting things,
[tab]And drops ’em on my clo’es.

The sky, a greasy soup-tureen,
[tab]Shuts down atop my brow.
Yes, I have sighed for London Town
[tab]And I have got it now:
And half of it is fog and filth,
[tab]And half of it is fog and row.

And when I take my nightly prowl,
[tab]’Tis passing good to meet
The pious Briton lugging home
[tab]His wife and daughter sweet,
Through four packed miles of seething vice,
[tab]Thrust out upon the street.

Earth holds no horror like to this
[tab]In any land displayed,
From Suez unto Sandy Hook,
[tab]From Calais to Port Said;
And ’twas to hide their heathendom
[tab]The beastly fog was made.

I cannot tell when dawn is near,
[tab]Or when the day is done,
Because I always see the gas,
[tab]And never see the sun,
And now, methinks, I do not care
[tab]A cuss for either one.

But stay, there was an orange, or
[tab]An aged egg its yolk;
It might have been a Pears’ balloon
[tab]Or Barnum’s latest joke:
I took it for the sun and wept
[tab]To watch it through the smoke.

It’s Oh to see the morn ablaze
[tab]Above the mango-tope,
When homeward through the dewy cane
[tab]The little jackals lope,
And half Bengal heaves into view,
[tab]New-washed—with sunlight soap.

It’s Oh for one deep whisky-peg
[tab]When Christmas winds are blowing,
When all the men you ever knew,
[tab]And all you’ve ceased from knowing,
Are “entered for the Tournament,
[tab]And everything that’s going.”

But I consort with long-haired things
[tab]In velvet collar-rolls,
Who talk about the Aims of Art,
[tab]And “theories” and “goals,”
And moo and coo with womenfolk
[tab]About their blessed souls.

But that they call “psychology”
[tab]Is lack of liver-pill,
And all that blights their tender souls
[tab]Is eating till they’re ill,
And their chief way of winning goals
[tab]Consists of sitting still.

It’s Oh to meet an Army man,
[tab]Set up, and trimmed and taut,
Who does not spout hashed libraries
[tab]Or think the next man’s thought,
And walks as though he owned himself,
[tab]And hogs his bristles short.

Hear now a voice across the seas
[tab]To kin beyond my ken,
If ye have ever filled an hour
[tab]With stories from my pen,
For pity’s sake send some one here
[tab]To bring me news of men!

The ‘buses run to Islington,
[tab]To Highgate and Soho,
To Hammersmith and Kew therewith,
[tab]And Camberwell also,
But I can only murmur “Bus!”
[tab]From Shepherd’s Bush to Bow.

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