Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Descriptive Poems: III. Places

London

John Davidson (1857–1909)

ATHWART the sky a lowly sigh

From west to east the sweet wind carried;

The sun stood still on Primrose Hill;

His light in all the city tarried:

The clouds on viewless columns bloomed

Like smouldering lilies unconsumed.

“O sweetheart, see! how shadowy,

Of some occult magician’s rearing,

Or swung in space of heaven’s grace

Dissolving, dimly reappearing,

Afloat upon ethereal tides,

St. Paul’s above the city rides!”

A rumor broke through the thin smoke

Enwreathing abbey, tower, and palace,

The parks, the squares, the thoroughfares,

The million-peopled lanes and alleys,

An ever-muttering prisoned storm,

The heart of London beating warm.