Lines on London

They once in wilderness did ride
On beast with horn and shaggy hide⁠—
A savage goat or unicorn,
But now parade in uniform;
As gay as ancient Knight or Lord,
With their grand plumes, and belt and swords.

Their graceful movements at their drill
Doth all with admiration fill,
And the chief glory it was won
By the encampment of London;
For they at every tournament
For drill are the chief ornament.

So skillfully they sword do wield,
Victorious on every field;
For victory’s graven on their shield
Doth make their rivals for to yield;
Drill companies they out manoeuvre
From Newfoundland to Vancouver.

Where this text comes from

First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L18.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “Lines on London.” First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/lines-on-london/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by James McIntyre