Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
A Song of PartingM. Compton Mackenzie (18831972)
M
Farewell to London town,
Farewell to each familiar street,
The room where we look’d down
Upon the people going by,
The river flowing fast:
The innumerable shine of lamps,
The bridges and—our past.
When every night we dream’d
Of Love and Art and Happiness,
And every day it seem’d,
Ah! little room, you held my life,
In you I found my all;
A white hand on the mantelpiece,
A shadow on the wall.
What cigarettes and wine
In faded corners of Soho,
Your fingers touching mine!
And now the time has come to say
Farewell to London town;
The prologue of our play is done,
So ring the curtain down.
In field and sleepy lane,
A fairer picture than we saw
Framed in our window-pane.
There’ll be the stars on summer nights,
The white moon thro’ the trees,
Moths, and the song of nightingales
To float along the breeze.
The swallows in the sun,
And hear the cuckoo on the hill
Welcome a day begun.
And life will open with the rose
For me, sweet, and for you,
And on our life and on the rose
How soft the falling dew!
But drop a parting tear
For town, whose greatest gift to us
Was to be lovers here.