It is the joyful time when out of town
(For me a large red letter checks it)
To sea and loch, to dale and windy down
The public makes its annual exit,
Deeming that they are dotty in the mind
Who choose to stay behind.
"Exodus" is the tag the papers use,
A Scriptural term from ancient Jewry,
But I shall always steadily refuse
To do like PHARAOH in his fury
And fling my horse and chariot on their track
To fetch the people back.
Poor crowded souls, who think that when they fare
Forth to the briny, there to wallow,
They leave in London's every street and square
An aching void, a yawning hollow.
"Town," they observe, "is empty!" It is not:
I still am on the spot.
They picture Beauty vanished from the Park,
Clubland a waste for flies to buzz in,
The Halls of Song and high Cinema dark,
And here and there a country cousin
Sharing with vagrant cat and mongrel dawg
The putrid dust of Aug.
These are their views who shun the quiet shade
And go _en masse_ in search of glamour,
Wash in the same sea, walk the same parade,
Fill the same solitude with clamour,
And on the same rock, in a fist like Fame's,
Knife their confounded names.
So let them trip it where their neighbours press
With loud excursion and alarum,
And leave me London in her Summer dress
Exquisite as the lily (_arum_)
And fragrant with the absence, all too short,
Of the more stuffy sort.
For then, when all the obvious people flit,
The town unlocks her rarer treasures;
More freely, with companions few but fit,
I taste the less obtrusive pleasures
With which the Choicer Spirits keep in touch
(As Editors and such).
Dearer I find than any change of scene
The charm of old familiar places,
When the dull obstacle that stood between
Fades and reveals their hidden graces.
London with half her Londoners removed
Is very much improved.
_Enfin, j'y reste_. And, if some folk regard
My conduct as a thing of beauty,
Saying, "He stops in town, this virtuous bard,
Because he loves the way of Duty,"
Why, let them talk; I shall not take the trouble
To prick this wanton bubble.
SIR OWEN SEAMAN.
July 31, 1912.