London in July / Amy Levy

London in July

What ails my senses thus to cheat?
     What is it ails the place,
That all the people in the street
     Should wear one woman's face?

The London trees are dusty-brown
     Beneath the summer sky;
My love, she dwells in London town,
     Nor leaves it in July.

O various and intricate maze,
     Wide waste of square and street;
Where, missing through unnumbered days.
     We twain at last may meet!

And who cries out on crowd and mart?
     Who prates of stream and sea ?
The summer in the city's heart —
     That is enough for me.

~~
Amy Levy (1861-1889)
from A London Plane-tree, and other verse, 1889

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Amy Levy biography