South London Sketch, 1944

From Bermondsey to Wandsworth

    So many churches are,

Some with apsidal chancels,

    Some Perpendicular

And schools by E.R. Robson

    In the style of Norman Shaw

Where blue-serged adolescence learn’d

    To model and to draw.

Oh, in among the houses,

    The viaduct below,

Stood the Coffee Essence Factory

    Of Robinson and Co.

Burnt and brown and tumbled down

    And done with years ago

Where the waters of the Wandle do

    Lugubriously flow.

From dust of dead explosions,

    From scarlet-hearted fires,

All unconcerned this train draws in

    And smoothly that retires

And calmly rise on smoky skies

    Of intersected wires

The Nonconformist spirelets

    And the Church of England spires.