Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

London Streets

Pall Mall

By Frederick Locker-Lampson (1821–1895)

MY little friend, so small and neat,

Whom years ago I used to meet

In Pall Mall daily;

How cheerily you tript away

To work,—it might have been to play,

You tript so gayly.

And Time trips too. This moral means

You then were midway in the teens

That I was crowning;

We never spoke, but when I smiled

At morn or eve, I know, dear child,

You were not frowning.

Each morning when we met, I think

Some sentiment did us two link,

Nor joy nor sorrow;

And then at eve, experience-taught,

Our hearts returned upon the thought,—

We meet to-morrow!

And you were poor; and how?—and why?

How kind to come, it was for my

Especial grace meant!

Had you a chamber near the stars,

A bird,—some treasured plants in jars,

About your casement?

I often wander up and down,

When morning bathes the silent town

In golden glory;

Perhaps, unwittingly, I ’ve heard

Your thrilling-toned canary-bird

From some third story.

I ’ve seen great changes since we met;

A patient little seamstress yet,

With small means striving,

Have you a Liliputian spouse?

And do you dwell in some doll’s house?

Is baby thriving?

My heart grows chill; can bloom like thine

Have past from this dear world of mine

To one far meeter?

To one whose promised joys are worth

The best, and more, of Mother Earth,

And is it sweeter?

Sometimes I to Pall Mall repair,

And see the damsels passing there;

But if I try to

Obtain one glance, they look discreet,

As though they ’d some one else to meet;

As have not I too?

Yet still I often think upon

Our many meetings, come and gone!

July—December!

Now let us make a tryst, and when,

Dear little soul, we meet again,—

The mansion is preparing,—then

Thy friend remember!