Deep South Kensington

by P. TREMAYNE

UNDER the dusty, the lace-dimmed windows,
green as seaweed, the plane-tree leaves
languidly flicker, and green, thin grasses
toughen and starve; and the lilac grieves.

Only the tattered and tinker-mouthed gutter-cats,
hunting and whoring their lean lives through,
ragged as kites, go slinking and sleeking,
swiftly, smuttily, two by two.

Only these, of a world of splendors,
lift and feather the grimy gloom.

And the withering daughter of deaneries watches,
eagerly, greedily, wistfully watches,
for the dingy flame of their street-hawk lives
by the mouth of her brick-lined tomb.