Adapted from “ A Ballad for London “ By Richard Le
1.Ah, London! London! our delight,
2. Great flower that opens but at night,
3. Great City of the midnight sun,
4. Whose day begins when day is done.
6. Lamp after lamp against the sky
7. Opens a sudden beaming eye,
8. Leaping alight on either hand,
9. The iron lilies of the Strand.
11. Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover,
12. With jeweled eyes, to catch the lover;
13. The streets are full of lights and loves,
14. Soft gowns, and flutter of soiled doves.
16. The human moths about the light
17. Dash and cling close in dazed delight,
18. And burn and laugh, the world and wife,
19. For this is London, this is life!
21. Upon thy petals butterflies,
22. But at thy root, some say, there lies,
23. A world of weeping trodden things,
24. Poor worms that have not eyes or wings.
26. From out corruption of their woe
27. Springs this bright flower that charms us so,
28. Men die and rot deep out of sight
29. To keep this jungle-flower bright.
31. Paris and London, World-Flowers twain
32. Wherewith the World-Tree blooms again,
33. Since Time hath gathered Babylon,
34. And withered Rome still withers on.
.
36. Ah, London! London! our delight,
37. For you, too, the eternal night,
38. And Circe Paris hath no charm
39. To stay Time's unrelenting arm.
41. Time and his moths shall eat up all.
42. Your chiming towers proud and tall
43. He shall most utterly abase,
44. And set a desert in their place.
1) The fifth and sixth stanzas greatly contrast the previous stanzas because the illustrate
a) gloomy and overlooked part of London
b) dark characteristic of another English town
c) the advantage of other large European cities
d) the negative of the city wild night line