In Portland Place.

HE world and wife are out of town, The blast sweeps down the empty street; The bobby in a study brown Thinks of the sea upon his beat. The cab-horse dozes on the rank, The empty ’buses cease to race; The hungry cat roams, lean and lank— The blinds are down in Portland Place. The birds still sing in Regent’s Park, The ducks emit their bronchial quack; But all day long from dawn to dark The crossing-sweeper’s trade is slack. The Langham porter’s wand’ring eye Encounters ne’er a human face; No smoke curls upward to the sky— The blinds are down in Portland Place. The thoroughfare is broad and wide, The vestry keeps the roadway clean, And I can walk on either side, Or ’gainst each separate lamp-post lean. I’m king of all that I survey— As sad as Selkirk’s is my case— Oh, soon, to save my reason, may The blinds go up in Portland Place!