The pigeons of the Abbey, the pigeons of Saint Paul's, <br />That woo in windy niches of grey and grimy walls, <br />The pearl-grey dawns of London, his sky that gleams and glooms, <br />His stately smoky sunsets are in their changing plumes. <br /> <br />The saucy London sparrows, their Cockney chatter tells <br />Their parents nested surely in earshot of Bow Bells . . . <br />But Oh! the London seagulls a-cruising up and down, <br />They're most like old-time seamen come back to London town. <br /> <br />Old salty swearing seadogs and tarry buccaneers, <br />With bacca quids and pigtails and ear-rings in their ears, <br />That spent their money handsome and took their ease ashore <br />In rowdy Ratcliff aleshops with sand upon the floor . . . <br /> <br />And bawled their old sea-ballads, and told their thumping lies, <br />In fearsome deep sea lingo to open landsmen's eyes, <br />And drained their brimming pewters, and spat into the tide, <br />In old shipboarded taverns by Wapping waterside . . . <br /> <br />And saw there at their moorings the Geordie colliers rock, <br />The latest pirate dangling at Execution Dock, <br />The anchored ships unloading their silks and laces fine, <br />And spices from the Indies, and rum, and Spanish wine . . . <br /> <br />And watched the busy wherries all plying with their fares, <br />From Globe, Jamaica, Wapping and Cherry Garden Stairs, <br />And the lighters and the barges a-passing to and fro <br />As they did on London River two hundred years ago.<br /><br />Cicely Fox Smith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/london-seagulls/
