There comes a ghostly space
'Twixt midnight and the dawn,
When from the heart of London Town
The tides of life are drawn.
What time, when Spring is due,
The captives dungeoned deep
Beneath the stones of London Town
Grow troubled in their sleep,
And wake--mint, mallow, dock,
Brambles in bondage sore,
And grasses shut in London Town
A thousand years and more.
Yet though beneath the stones
They starve, and overhead
The countless feet pace London Town
Of men who hold them dead,
Like Samson, blind and scorned,
In pain their time they bide
To seize the roots of London Town
And tumble down its pride.
Now well by proof and sign,
By men unheard, unseen,
They know that far from London Town
The woods once more are green.
But theirs is still to wait,
Deaf to the myriad hum,
Beneath the stones of London Town
A Spring that needs must come.