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But not the Natural History Museum (pout). It IS a cool city, isn't it (smirk of London Pride). 'Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew/(Twenty bridges or twenty-two)/Wanted to know what the River knew/For they were young and the Thames was old/And this is the Tale that the River told:/'I walk my beat before London Town/Five hours up and seven down/Up I go till I end my run/At Tide-End Town which is Teddington/Down I come with the mud in my hands/And plaster it over the Maplin Sands/But I'd have you know that these waters of mine/Were once a branch of the River Rhine/When hundreds of miles to the East I went/And England was joined to the Continent/I remember the bat-winged lizard birds/The Age of Ice and the Mammoth herds/And the giant tigers that stalked them down/Through Regent's Park into Camden Town/And I remember like yesterday/The earliest Cockney who came my way/As he pushed through the forests that lined the Strand/With paint on his face and a club in his hand/He was death to feather and fin and fur/He trapped my beavers at Westminster/He netted my salmon, he hunted my deer/He killed my heron off Lambeth Pier/He fought his neighbour with axes and swords/Flint or bronze at my upper fords/While down at Greenwich for slaves and tin/The tall Phoenician ships blew in/And North Sea war-boats, painted and gay/Flitted like dragon-flies Erith way/And Norseman and Negro and Gaul and Greek/Drank with the Britons in Barking Creek/And life was gay and the world was new/And I was a mile across at Kew/But the Romans came with a heavy hand/And bridged and roaded and ruled the land/And the Romans left and the Danes blew in/And that's where your history-books begin!' (Kipling)
The English Tourist Board will now sign off. sorry. It has to be my favourite London poem.
Fired by
Ysabel Jehan Howard @ April 29, 2004 11:48 PM
But not the Natural History Museum (pout). It IS a cool city, isn't it (smirk of London Pride). 'Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew/(Twenty bridges or twenty-two)/Wanted to know what the River knew/For they were young and the Thames was old/And this is the Tale that the River told:/'I walk my beat before London Town/Five hours up and seven down/Up I go till I end my run/At Tide-End Town which is Teddington/Down I come with the mud in my hands/And plaster it over the Maplin Sands/But I'd have you know that these waters of mine/Were once a branch of the River Rhine/When hundreds of miles to the East I went/And England was joined to the Continent/I remember the bat-winged lizard birds/The Age of Ice and the Mammoth herds/And the giant tigers that stalked them down/Through Regent's Park into Camden Town/And I remember like yesterday/The earliest Cockney who came my way/As he pushed through the forests that lined the Strand/With paint on his face and a club in his hand/He was death to feather and fin and fur/He trapped my beavers at Westminster/He netted my salmon, he hunted my deer/He killed my heron off Lambeth Pier/He fought his neighbour with axes and swords/Flint or bronze at my upper fords/While down at Greenwich for slaves and tin/The tall Phoenician ships blew in/And North Sea war-boats, painted and gay/Flitted like dragon-flies Erith way/And Norseman and Negro and Gaul and Greek/Drank with the Britons in Barking Creek/And life was gay and the world was new/And I was a mile across at Kew/But the Romans came with a heavy hand/And bridged and roaded and ruled the land/And the Romans left and the Danes blew in/And that's where your history-books begin!' (Kipling)
The English Tourist Board will now sign off. sorry. It has to be my favourite London poem.