For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heard

At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)

And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out

You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorusing for London:—

Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;

Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;

Come down to Kew in lilac-time (is isn't far from London!)

And then the troubadour begins to thrill the golden street,

In the city as the sun sinks low;

And in all the gaudy busses there are scores of weary feet

Marking time, sweet time, with a dull mechanic beat,

And a thousand hearts are plunging to a love they'll never meet,

Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat,

In the land where the dead dreams go.

Verdi, Verdi, when you wrote Il Trovatore did you dream

Of the City when the sun sinks low,

Of the organ and the monkey and the many-coloured stream

On the Piccadilly pavement, of the myriad eyes that seem

To be litten for a moment with a wild Italian gleam

As A che la morte parodies the world's eternal theme

And pulses with the sunset-glow?

There's a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen stone

In the City as the sun sinks low;

There's a portly man of business with a balance of his own,