The Cockney Amorist

Oh when my love, my darling,

    You’ve left me here alone,

I’ll walk the streets of London

    Which once seemed all our own.

The vast suburban churches

    Together we have found:

The ones which smelt of gaslight

    The ones in incense drown’d;

I’ll use them now for praying in

    And not for looking round.

No more the Hackney Empire

    Shall find us in its stalls

When on the limelit crooner

    The thankful curtain falls,

And soft electric lamplight

    Reveals the gilded walls.

I will not go to Finsbury Park

    The putting course to see

Nor cross the crowded High Road

    To Williamsons’ to tea,

For these and all the other things

    Were part of you and me.

I love you, oh my darling,

    And what I can’t make out

Is why since you have left me

    I’m somehow still about.