When London Calls

They leave us - artists, singers, all     When London calls aloud,     Commanding to her Festival     The gifted crowd.     She sits beside the ship-choked Thames,     Sad, weary, cruel, grand;     Her crown imperial gleams with gems     From many a land.     From overseas, and far away,     Come crowded ships and ships     Grim-faced she gazes on them; yea,     With scornful lips.     The garden of the earth is wide;     Its rarest blooms she picks     To deck her board, this haggard-eyed     Imperatrix.     Sad, sad is she, and yearns for mirth;     With voice of golden guile     She lures men from the ends of earth     To make her smile.     The student of wild human ways     In wild new lands; the sage     With new great thoughts; the bard whose lays     Bring youth to age;     The painter young whose pictures shine     With colours magical;     The singer with the voice divine     She lures them all.     But all their new is old to her     Who bore the Anakim;     She gives them gold or Charon's fare     As suits her whim.     Crowned Ogress - old, and sad, and wise     She sits with painted face     And hard, imperious, cruel eyes     In her high place.     To him who for her pleasure lives,     And makes her wish his goal,     A rich Tarpeian gift she gives     That slays his soul.     The story-teller from the Isles     Upon the Empire's rim,     With smiles she welcomes - and her smiles     Are death to him.     For Her, whose pleasure is her law,     In vain the shy heart bleeds     The Genius with the Iron jaw     Alone succeeds.     And when the Poet's lays grow bland,     And urbanised, and prim -     She stretches forth a jewelled hand     And strangles him.     She sits beside the ship-choked Thames     With Sphinx-like lips apart     Mistress of many diadems     Death in her heart!