William Oxley
from London Visions
Thames’ Banner
It is as if all the world shat here
a great cesspool or jakes
of the modern-antique pullulating.
Celia, this is human, makes
us so, and unmakes. True Waste Land.
Unhid, the ugsome images
everywhere, as Golden London’s
splendour rots through ages.
Such an euyl fauored face
my pity’s pearly queen,
my city, your Billingsgate yawp
and sweaty cockney sheen
of the gutsy, ennobled vulgar
who never quite got God
but yelled in the Devil’s face
in ’42: ‘Hitler’s a sod!’
Effluvia of dreams and ill-health.
Paris has elegance, fashion,
but you are sweet-sour human,
O my London, my London!
In your stone way a stage of the Cross
in a grey world:
a sun of love rising over -
Thames’ banner unfurled.
Page(s) 82
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