Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CUSTOM HOUSE, by PATRICK REGINALD CHALMERS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CUSTOM HOUSE, by                    
First Line: The custom house in billingsgate
Last Line: For half-an-hour of hot july.
Subject(s): Houses


THE Custom House in Billingsgate
Is very large and very great,
All summer its electrics swish
To dissipate the smell of fish.

Outside the streets are glaring, grim,
Inside it's cool and wide and dim,
And all its rooms have swinging doors,
And disinfectants on the floors.

From its front windows one may see
The Thames as muddy as can be;
Its clerks are very cross and sour,
And keep you waiting half-an-hour.

But you may watch the tramps go by
For Christiansund or Uruguay,
Or read, what most my fancy stirs,
The "Notices to Mariners."

These tell of buoys and lights and quays,
For those in "peril of the seas,"
They caution captain, and convict
The sunken shoal or derelict.

And as you read them you may reach
A Greenland floe, a coral beach,
The breeze that stirs the tamarinds,
Or rushing, grey Atlantic winds.

And so the Custom House, you see,
Seems quite a pleasant place to me;
I won't mind waiting—no, not I,
For half-an-hour of hot July.





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