Classic Poem

Come hither, Fisher Unwin,
And leave your work awhile,
Uplooking in my face a span
With bright adoring smile.
All happy leaping Publishers
Round Paternoster Row,
Gay Simpkin, dreamy Marshall
And simple Samson Low,
Come round, forgetting all your fears,
Your hats and dinners too,
While I remark with studied calm,
“Hurrah for Waterloo!”

Nay start not, fearful Putman,
I sing no warrior's fall
(Macmillan, smile again, and dry
The tears of Kegan Paul)
But seldom on the spot I sing
Is heard the peal of guns,
Men do not charge for batteries
They only charge for buns,
No chief expires, no trumpet
I blow, except my own,
But harmless season tickets
Expire without a groan.

I've been in all the waiting-rooms,
I never chanced to see
An army: but observant
I never claimed to be—
If someone through my body drove
A bayonet like a spit
I listened to Miss Frances Blogg
And did not notice it.

Yet still thy Gladstone bags shall woo
Thy labels bashful kiss
Geologists shall reconcile
Thy cake with Genesis,
For out of thee the Sacred Seven
Went forth to better spheres
And left the Bard upon the shore
With chocolate and tears.

When dark and low the moon hath sunk
The booking-Office shut,
When wolves howl in the waiting-rooms
(Be still, O David Nutt!)
Under the sad and naked stars
A figure walks alone.
His hair is white, and in his eyes
A blessing wild as hate,

And in his feverish grasp for aye
He clutches One-and-Eight.
He seeks not how to separate
His neck-tie from his hair
He walks upon the railway-line,
His soul is buried there.