Fire!

By Sir W. S.
I.
  St. Giles's street is fair and wide,
 St. Giles's street is long;
  But long or wide, may naught abide
 Therein of guile or wrong;
  For through St. Giles's, to and fro,
  The mild ecclesiastics go
 From prime to evensong.
  It were a fearsome task, perdie!
  To sin in such good company.
II.
  Long had the slanting beam of day
  Proclaimed the Thirtieth of May
  Ere now, erect, its fiery heat
  Illumined all that hallowed street,
  And breathing benediction on
  Thy serried battlements, St. John,
  Suffused at once with equal glow
  The cluster'd Archipelago,
  The Art Professor's studio
 And Mr. Greenwood's shop,
  Thy building, Pusey, where below
  The stout Salvation soldiers blow
 The cornet till they drop;
  Thine, Balliol, where we move, and oh!
 Thine, Randolph, where we stop.
III.
  But what is this that frights the air,
  And wakes the curate from his lair
 In Pusey's cool retreat,
  To leave the feast, to climb the stair,
 And scan the startled street?
  As when perambulate the young
  And call with unrelenting tongue
 On home, mamma, and sire;
  Or voters shout with strength of lung
 For Hall &Co's Entire;
  Or Sabbath-breakers scream and shout—
  The band of Booth, with drum devout,
  Eliza on her Sunday out,
 Or Farmer with his choir:—
IV.
  E'en so, with shriek of fife and drum
 And horrid clang of brass,
  The Fire Brigades of England come
 And down St. Giles's pass.
  Oh grand, methinks, in such array
  To spend a Whitsun Holiday
 All soaking to the skin!
 (Yet shoes and hose alike are stout;
  The shoes to keep the water out,
 The hose to keep it in.)
V.
  They came from Henley on the Thames,
 From Berwick on the Tweed,
  And at the mercy of the flames
  They left their children and their dames,
  To come and play their little games
 On Morrell's dewy mead.
  Yet feared they not with fire to play—
  The pyrotechnics (so they say)
 Were very fine indeed.
VI.
(P.S. by Lord Macaulay).
  Then let us bless Our Gracious Queen and eke the Fire Brigade,
  And bless no less the horrid mess they've been and gone
  and made;
  Remove the dirt they chose to squirt upon our best attire,
  Bless all, but most the lucky chance that no one
  shouted 'Fire!'