WAR VISTAS IN LONDON. The Old Democrat.

Despair has scrawled in blood across his heart,
Disdain has shrivelled speech upon his mouth,
He walks the reeling streets to bear his part

In that poor screaming rout of insolence.
No wind of honour bloweth for his drought,
Pain waits on nameless shames, his aching sense

Perceives no path whereby the common man
Hell's senseless triumph shall at last redeem,
His holy sword light as a broken fan.

The rapture of our shared humanity
Swept on the breeze of blood a weakling dream,
The labour of his soul a vanity.

Boys reeling drunk waving a tawdry flag,
A pinched frail lass staring and shadow-eyed...
He knows the meaning of that painted rag,

## II. In the Shaftsbury Avenue.

The city of the Thousand Griefs to-night
Tumultuous, flagrant, multitudinous,
Adorned herself again, unwirgin, bright
In her fierce magic for the pain of us.
O Triple Mistress, Lure of our desire,
Mystery of hell and stars and blackened stone,
Intolerable love and愛barren fire
Had we who heard that night your torture-moan.
When down one whirling street a girl we met,
(The war-gods screamed waving each fervid rag)
Daughter of joy, the worse for wear, (forget
Two nations folly insolence and brag)
Wistful defiant with dark-hollowed throat,
The hostile flag pinned in her tawdry coat.

WAR VISTAS IN LONDON. 6.

The leaves down-whirling through the quiet streets,
They run a little way, spin round and cease
In the quiet gutter.

These, and a barrel-organ pouring sweet,
The scarlet shout for men, more men,
Makes all the Kingsway's circumstance complete.

The mist veils ghostly the comissionaire
Smoking his evening pipe up on the steps
Where such a bright brief time ago
In the translucent summer air
We had dwung riotous

Through the wide doors and up the taronging echoing stair.

The term begins again,
But their faces.... their faces....
The joyous, the passionnate,
They are not there.

When the June dusk burned violet,
And the stars swung down from a roof that was black as the
sea,

And danced and swung comradely over our hair.....

Now awful remote and unpitying they have withdrawn themselves,

And the Companions of the Dancing Stars

They are not there.

Strange men throng,

Up the long way to the housetop and our youth's warm lair,

The doors swing back and the fleeing ghosts brush past us....

And the ghost of them all most desirable

Comes..... with the old creek of the swing-door,

The clean spring across the floor,

The rose-stained nails....

The lustrous jesting eyes.....

O shadows who make the conquerors of our old heaven spectral

The dusk shivers with the breeze of your passing, and the
desire of your eyes

I eat alone,

Scorning those yet present who knew not our mystery, or passed
it with a sneer.

Those with whom we had eaten gladly,

Those with whom our the roof rang with our laughter delectable,

(Now echoing to a dreary jest, and a laugh like an edgeless
sword)

They are not there.