This London of cast-iron and bronze, my soul,
where under shed-roofs sheets of metal clang;
where sailing ships disappear, without Notre Dame
for star, disappear, out there, towards fate.
Stations of soot and smoke, where the gas weeps
its spleens of distant silver towards paths of light
where beasts of boredom yawn at the hour
that chimes, immensely mournful, from Westminster.
And this unending embankment of deadly lamps,
the fates whose spindles dive to the depths;
and these drowned mariners, beneath petals
of mud flowers where the flame casts its glimmers.
And these gestures of drunken women and these shawls,
this liquor in golden letters high as roofs,
and suddenly death amongst these multitudes,
O my evening soul, this dark London that drags in you.