People of London, lying asleep, things are moving while you slumber, things are breathing, they’re coming out now, they’re coming up. Do you, Londoners, do you trust a pillow with your head? Well well, there’s a mistake. Do you allow sheets and blankets, eiderdowns and rugs to cover over all your body, do you surrender to them so? Well well, how innocent you are. Come, come now every object, wheresoe’er you are, strike off your chains, come find some life, be docile no longer. I call you, I call you in the night. Every door, every door I say, open. Open up!
Come tables. Come chairs, come beds, come books, come lanterns, come cupboards, come hooks, come hats, come gloves, come coats, come bonnets, come boots, come keys, come rings, come ropes, come strings, come yarn, come mops, come soap, come clocks, come scissors, come pincers, come measures, come doorknob, come keyhole, come doorstep, come doormat, come hatstand, come nightstand, come boot scrape, come tooth-mug, come toothbrush, come hairbrush, come clothes-brush, come carpets, come rugs, come caps, come mugs, come plates, come forks, come knives, come trousers, come shorts, come chairs, come corks: come, come you all from everywhere.
From Portman Square, from Portland Place, Portugal Street, Paternoster Row, Bromley-by-Bow, Grays Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, Inner Temple Gate, and Fleet Street and Greek Street, Sicilian Avenue, Guy’s Hospital and Highgate Cemetery, Blackheath, Blackwall, Blackfriars, Crouch End, Aldwich, Aldgate, Aldersgate, Elephant and Castle, Old Bailey, Old Brentford, Old London Bridge, Old Windsor, Old Palace Yard, Golden Square, Holborn Hill, Kilburn Road, Merton, Homerton, Hampton Wick, Hampton Court, Newgate, Highgate, St John’s Gate, Eastgate. Churches: Anne’s, Botolph’s, Bride’s, Clement’s. Dunstan’s, George’s, Giles’, James’s, John’s and Lawrence, Luke, Magnus, Martin, Margaret, Mark, Mary, Michael, Olave, Paul, Pancras, Peter, Saviour, Stephen, Swithin. All Souls!
Come, come, come one, come all! Come bits from Bermondsey and Bridewell and Battersea. Come commodities from Kentish Town and Kensington and Kennington, come goods from Great Russell Street and articles from Apsley House, come items from Islington, and devices from Devonshire House, come kindlings from Kingston-on-Thames and pickings of Paddington and pieces of Pentonville and matter of Marylebone.
Come, come to me now from Upper Holloway to Deptford Dockyard. Come rich and poor alike, things, come things to me, buttons of pearl from Grosvenor Square, false teeth of wood from Limehouse Basin. Come bricks and bricks and bricks and mortar of London come, come, come trappings, come, come trip trap, trip trap.
We used to walk on four legs, just like a table.
Come on then, do come along.
Come then, come along, I love you all. But come along.
On we go, on we go, every last one of you.
To Westminster, to Westminster, to cry a new home.
Come morning, come London, no, no, come Lungdon! Come, come, come you on!