Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LONDON, SEPTEMBER, 1944, by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LONDON, SEPTEMBER, 1944, by                    
First Line: I am old london with my waste of weeds
Last Line: Flow all the prouder this september morn?
Subject(s): London


(Written after hearing a wireless speech from Brussels)

I am old London with my waste of weeds
After five years of warfare, stone from stone
Disrupted of my seat, through which the seeds
Of wild plants into crowding life have grown.

I have heard voices wafted on the air,
The tongues of other cities and gay song
Of neighbour peoples freed at last from care
And casting off the weight of bondage long.

"But for thy ruins and thy ravaged walls
We had not else been liberated; we
(So say the voices) had been ever thralls:
We thank thee, London, for thy constancy.

London that never fail'dst the human cause,
The mansion-house and refuge of the right:
There's not a heart to-day but to thee draws,
Warm hearth of hope, denier of the night!"

So speak the voices, and I love their thanks.
What now are weedy courts and shrines forlorn?
Does not my Thames between his seaward banks
Flow all the prouder this September morn?





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