AS we come up at Baker Street Where tubes and trains and 'buses meet There's a touch of fog and a touch of sleet; And we go on up Hampstead way Towards the closing in of day... You should be a queen or a duchess rather, Reigning in place of a warlike father In peaceful times o'er a tiny town Where all the roads wind up and down From your little palace—a small, old place Where every soul should know your face And bless your coming. That's what I mean, A small grand-duchess, no distant queen, Lost in a great land, sitting alone In a marble palace upon a throne. And you'd say to your shipmen: "Now take your ease, To-morrow is time enough for the seas." And you'd set your bondmen a milder rule And let the children loose from the school. No wrongs to right and no sores to fester, In your small, great hall 'neath a firelit dais, You'd sit, with me at your feet, your jester, Stroking your shoes where the seed pearls glisten And talking my fancies. And you as your way is, Would sometimes heed and at times not listen, But sit at your sewing and look at the brands And sometimes reach me one of your hands, Or bid me write you a little ode, Part quaint, part sad, part serious... But here we are in the Finchley Road With a drizzling rain and a skidding 'bus And the twilight settling down on us. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DUSK IN WAR TIME by SARA TEASDALE PROLONGED SONNET: WHEN THE TROOPS WERE RETURNING FROM MILAN by NICCOLO DEGLI ALBIZZI TO R. B. by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS ROUGE BOUQUET [MARCH 7, 1918] by ALFRED JOYCE KILMER ON THE DEATH OF A METAPHYSICIAN by GEORGE SANTAYANA |