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Bread and Circuses

Chapter 17: CRIES OF LONDON
By Helen Parry Eden
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Poetry

About This Book

A lyrical collection of short poems ranges from quiet country scenes and childhood memories to urban sketches and religious reflections. The poet renders streams, gardens, market sellers, and domestic interiors in close sensory detail while pairing everyday observation with moral and spiritual meditation. Animal vignettes and playful pieces for children sit alongside elegies, prayers, and ironic portraits of modern life, producing tones of humour, tenderness, and solemnity. Varied forms and concise portraits move between pastoral lanes, London streets, and intimate household moments while attending to time, sorrow, and faith.

CRIES OF LONDON

What dusky branches fret the yellow sky, Betsey, beyond our urban balcony How darkly looms the street; And from below how many a note assails Your unaccustomed ears where London wails About your little feet.
Here, princess of a sombre citadel, You stand, the muffin-man with twilight bell Preludes your early tea And where the milk-man on melodious ways Slowly meanders, you incline to praise His clear delivery;
How pitiful you scan the vagabond Who cries his ferns as though each arid frond Sprang from his arid heart, And list the lamentable sweep complain Urging in wrath against the slanting rain The sable of his cart.
These for your little ears, so lately blest With cluck of painted poultry on the nest And rooks’ loquacious flight, Who, when the pear-blossom was hardly blown, Answered the cuckoo’s folly with your own And chid the owls at night.
Dear, I could thank you for your brave content— But, ah, beware, when spring is gone and spent, Lest summer’s dusty stir Lead gypsies Londonwards from scented loam Of Mitcham and the furrows nearer home With song of “Lavender!”
Then close your casement, shun the outer air, Let no sublime virago mount the stair And bring the rustic South, Lest some quick memory of all before And the great silver bush beside the door, Deject your happy mouth.