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Title: St. Martin's Lane
Author: Eugene Field [
More Titles by Field]
ST. MARTIN'S LANE winds up the hill,
And trends a devious way;
I walk therein amid the din
Of busy London day:
I walk where wealth and squalor meet,
And think upon a time
When others trod this saintly sod,
And heard St. Martin's chime.
But when those solemn bells invoke
The midnight's slumbrous grace,
The ghosts of men come back again
To haunt that curious place:
The ghosts of sages, poets, wits,
Come back in goodly train;
And all night long, with mirth and song,
They walk St. Martin's Lane.
There's Jerrold paired with Thackeray,
Maginn and Thomas Moore,
And here and there and everywhere
Fraserians by the score;
And one wee ghost that climbs the hill
Is welcomed with a shout,--
No king could be revered as he,--
The padre, Father Prout!
They banter up and down the street,
And clamor at the door
Of yonder inn, which once has been
The scene of mirth galore:
'Tis now a lonely, musty shell,
Deserted, like to fall;
And Echo mocks their ghostly knocks,
And iterates their call.
Come back, thou ghost of ruddy host,
From Pluto's misty shore;
Renew to-night the keen delight
Of by-gone years once more;
Brew for this merry, motley horde,
And serve the steaming cheer;
And grant that I may lurk hard by,
To see the mirth, and hear.
Ah, me! I dream what things may seem
To others childish vain,
And yet at night 'tis my delight
To walk St. Martin's Lane;
For, in the light of other days,
I walk with those I love,
And all the time St. Martin's chime
Makes piteous moan above.
[The end]
Eugene Field's poem: St. Martin's Lane
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