Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE OLD LURE (FLEET STREET), by PATRICK MACGILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OLD LURE (FLEET STREET), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When the gaunt night covers the city
Last Line: And the pals of long ago.
Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Friendship; Old Age


WHEN the gaunt night covers the city,
And the fog drifts down the wind,
I sit in my study thinking
Of the pals I left behind;
And the old lure of the old life
Enters into my mind.

I'm sick of the books before me,
And the sorry lore that they hold;
And I long for the full-blooded lusty youth,
That passed like a tale that's told.
Oh! the old life is the sweetest life;
And my heart goes back to the old

Dibble and drift and drill,
Ratchet and rail and rod,
Shovel and spanner and screw,
Hard-hafted hammer and hod,
The rattle of wheels on the facing points,
And the smell of the rain-washed sod.

The call of a wondrous past
Is throbbing in my heart-strings,
The danger-lights aflare
Where the hooded signal swings,
The clash of the closing blades,
As the straining point-rod springs.

The old friend is the best friend,
He who has stood the test:
The old song is the sweetest song,
Sweeter than all the rest.
And the old life that I left behind
Is far and away the best.

When I go back to the old pals,
'T is a glad, glad boy I'll be;
With them will I share the doss-house bunk,
And join their revels with glee;
And the lean men of the lone shacks
Shall share their tucker with me.

My hobnailed bluchers I shall put on,
Firm in welt and vamp,
And get me moleskin and corduroy,
Proof to the dirt and damp,
And sweat on the shift with the navvy-men
And doss again with the tramp.

Where the sunsets flame on the offside track
Amber and cochineal,
Where the dawn breaks, a waking rose,
I'll beg and starve and steal,
Or hash with the stiff-lipped navvy-men,
And feel as I used to feel.

'T is oh! for the hot-plate reeking red,
When the naphtha lamps are lit,
As the jokes go round the gambling school
Told with a ready wit,
The well-won rest of a slavish day,
The joy and glamour of it!

Sick indeed of the city am I,
Its make-believe and its show,
The roar and rush of the crowded streets
Where men run to and fro.
For I've hashed in the drift for seven year,
And back to the drift I'll go,
Back to the men of the lone lank lands
And the pals of long ago.





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