Listen, my Lord. Can you hear the sound of London,
The restless court beyond your Palace’s wall?
Hear I sit, alone and abandoned
And listen to its sound as I count the minutes to my fall.
Can you’re here, my Lord, the sound of birds singing,
Harmonising with the children’s naïve laughter?
The sound of a stranger passed by, sighing
As he recalled the memories that all over again had shattered.
Listen, my Lord, the market’s bustling bargains.
The amiable housewives laughed, the bloodshot street rats groaned.
Boorish ladies giggled to boorish men’s puns
Under their cart of hay, rattled the rocks and the stones.
Can you hear, my Lord, in the pitch dark of the night?
The distant trebuchets, the mighty lion’s roar
An infant’s cry rose as the streets dimmed its light
A dress fluttered away from the life it had bore.
But can you hear, my Lord, as the lovely nightingales sing,
Softly and sweetly, the song of the city?
A song of no vengeance nor hatred they’d bring
And like a dream they’ll leave you, ever so swiftly!
O listen, my Lord to the sound of London!
Like the flow of the Thames, steady and slow
Like blood through the arteries, this heart of the lion
Forever shall it runs with its soulful woe.
