They leave us — artists, singers, all —
  When London calls aloud.
Commanding to her Festival
  The gifted crowd.

She sits beside the ship-choked Thames,
  Sad, weary, cruel, grand;
Her crown imperial gleams with gems
  From many a land.

From overseas, and far away,
  Come crowded ships and ships —
Grim-faced she gazes on them; yea,
  With scornful lips.

The garden of the earth is wide;
  Its rarest blooms she picks
To deck her board, this haggard-eyed
  Imperatrix.

Sad, sad is she, and yearns for mirth;
  With voice of golden guile
She lures men from the ends of earth
  To make her smile.

The student of wild human ways
  In wild new lands; the sage
With new great thoughts; the bard whose lays
  Bring youth to age;

The painter young whose pictures shine
  With colours magical,
The singer with the voice divine —
  She lures them all.

But all their new is old to her
  Who bore the Anakim;
She gives them gold or Charon's fare
  As suits her whim.

Crowned Ogress — old, and sad, and wise -
  She sits with painted face
And hard, imperious, cruel eyes
  In her high place.

To him who for her pleasure lives,
  And makes her wish his goal,
A rich Tarpeian gift she gives —
  That slays his soul.

The story-teller from the Isles
  Upon the Empire's rim,
With smiles she welcomes — and her smiles
  Are death to him.

For Her, whose pleasure is her law,
  In vain the shy heart bleeds —
The Genius with the Iron Jaw
  Alone succeeds.

And when the Poet's lays grow bland,
  And urbanised, and prim -
She stretches forth a jewelled hand
  And strangles him.

She sits beside the ship-choked Thames
  "With Sphinx-like lips apart —
Mistress of many diadems -
  Death in her heart!