Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FINCHLEY ROAD, by FORD MADOX FORD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FINCHLEY ROAD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: As we come up at baker street
Last Line: And the twilight settling down on us.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hueffer, Ford Hermann; Hueffer, Ford Madox
Subject(s): Roads; Paths; Trails


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.





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