Summer In London
By Helen Leah Reed
Oh, the noise of Piccadilly - its rumble and its roar!
A tide of life's broad ocean surging toward the shore.
Who once has listened, ever can hear its long refrain
With haunting echo drowning or dirge or flaunting strain.
Who heeds it, in his vision may see a world-throng pass -
And over there the Green Park with laughing lad and lass;
While weary men and women and careless youth go by,
Where windows glow and glitter, and in the evening sky
A crescent moon is watching the laughing lass and lad.
The long, warm London twilight! Happy they are, though sad.
With kiss and tear they are parting. 'Tis late - the rush and roar -
The life of Picadilly is waning - is no more.
Ah, the dark, the cold, the stillness of the trenches in the night,
Where freezing men are crouching in the lull before the fight.
Then for one the calm is broken by the rumble and the roar
Of far-off Picadilly, and in dreams, as oft before,
He sees her who wept at parting. What was that? A whining shell?
Once a man - that huddled horror! He was smiling as he fell.
Summer has returned to London. Now the Green Park gleams anew.
Cheers and tears together mingle - but the breaking heart beats true.
Blare of trumpet! - blood and fire! - so her hero marched away.
Happy lad and lass they parted - now the pitying sky is gray.
Blood and fire! Through its heroes shall a nation live again.
Blare of trumpet! But in silence aching hearts must bear their pain.
Ah, the stillness of the trenches! ah, the rumble and the roar!
Cheers and tears by England offered for the lads who come no more.
1915