It must have been the weather and the cold
The gas lamps and the lonesomeness of art
That drove him to my door that winter night.
It was the imps in the streets of London
Forced him to stop his violin solo
To stalk them again, each pretty problem.
It is the things men dream of in the night
Each one independent, each one solo.
To stop one's thoughts is a three pipe problem
And harder still, in Britain's bitter cold.
The sleepless man walks the streets of London
To crush insomnia is a hard learned art.
What drives him on, what life or death problem?
Merely some silver, highly prized and cold
Snatched in the wee hours by some criminal art
That he cannot this time retrieve solo.
It's rude to call so late, to come by night
But he says he needs me. So does London.
He will not look for thanks – thankless is art
He does what urchins will do in the cold
The Arabs, irregulars of London
The ragged and the ladies of the night
He looks to be for praise without problem
To stand by him, together but solo.
I watch him, in the lights of our London
I watch his chin buried deep against the cold
Driven by his own desire for the night
For stimulation, for a real problem.
After all, Stradivarius solos
Aren't really true expressions of his art.
I cannot stop it from coming, the night
Nor can I extract crime from my London.
Though then he'd sleep, he'd lose his lust for art
And I could never wish for that. How cold!
He'd come to an end of his madman's solo
Retreat to Sussex to solve bee's problems.
He is the coldest man in his London
He lives, if one can call it that, solo
Inside the problem of the art and night.
