The evenings gather in apace,
 An autumn chill pervades the air,
And London seems an altered place:
 One’s friends accost one here and there,
Hansoms with luggage on the top
 Roll out with each incoming train;
There’s quite a crowd in every shop:
 London is filling up again.

Time was (last week, to be exact)
 I walked through a deserted town,
Chiefly distinguished for the fact
 That nearly every blind was down.
The days passed slowly by: I felt
 My nerves grow raw beneath the strain:
But now the cloud begins to melt;
 London is filling up again.

Those sluggish weeks! Yet, after all,
 They’d compensations in a way:
Although it soon began to pall,
 They did provide a holiday;
O’er Fashion’s adamant decrees
 I had no cause to vex my brain.
I do exactly what I please
 Till London fills itself again.

I now abjure my lighter suits,
 My Panama; and on my feet
I cram, with pain, a pair of boots
 That pinch, but look extremely neat:
No more I shirk the morning shave,
 In bed though wishful to remain;
Briefly, I count myself a slave
 Now London’s filling up again.

P. G. W.