II

Down through the ancient Strand The Spirit of October, mild and boon And sauntering, takes his way This golden end of afternoon,

As though the corn stood yellow in all the land And the ripe apples dropped to the harvest-moon. Lo! the round sun, half down the western slope — Seen as along an unglazed telescope —

Lingers and lolls, loth to be done with day: Gifting the long, lean, lanky street And its abounding confluences of being With aspects generous and bland:

Making a thousand harnesses to shine As with new ore from some enchanted mine, And every horse's coat so full of sheen He looks new-tailored, and every‘ bus feels clean,

And never a hansom but is worth the feeing; And every jeweller within the pale Offers a real Arabian Night for sale; And even the roar

Of the strong streams of toil that pause and pour Eastward and westward sounds suffused — Seems as it were bemused And blurred, and like the speech

Of lazy seas upon a lotus-eating beach — With this enchanted lustrousness, This mellow magic, that ( as a man's caress Brings back to some faded face beloved before

A heavenly shadow of the grace it wore Ere the poor eyes were minded to beseech ) Old things transfigures, and you hail and bless Their looks of long-lapsed loveliness once more;

Till the sedate and mannered elegance Of Clement's is all tinctured with romance; The while the fanciful, formal, finicking charm Of Bride's, that madrigal in stone,

Glows flushed and warm And beauteous with a beauty not its own; And the high majesty of Paul's Uplifts a voice of living light, and calls —

Calls to his millions to behold and see How goodly this his London Town can be! For earth and sky and air Are golden everywhere,

And golden with a gold so suave and fine The looking on it lifts the heart like wine. Trafalgar Square ( The fountains volleying golden glaze )

Gleams like an angel-market. High aloft Over his couchant Lions in a haze Shimmering and bland and soft, A dust of chrysoprase,

Our Sailor takes the golden gaze Of the saluting sun, and flames superb As once he flamed it on his ocean round. The dingy dreariness of the picture-place,

Turned very nearly bright, Takes on a certain dismal grace, And shows not all a scandal to the ground. The very blind man pottering on the kerb,

Among the posies and the ostrich feathers And the rude voices touched with all the weathers Of all the varying year, Shares in the universal alms of light.

The windows, with their fleeting, flickering fires, The height and spread of frontage shining sheer, The glistering signs, the rejoicing roofs and spires — ‘ Tis El Dorado — El Dorado plain,

The Golden City! And when a girl goes by, Look! as she turns her glancing head, A call of gold is floated from her ear! Golden, all golden! In a golden glory,

Long lapsing down a golden coasted sky, The day not dies but seems Dispersed in wafts and drifts of gold, and shed Upon a past of golden song and story

And memories of gold and golden dreams.