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.