To develop a little the line of the poet Edmund Spenser, who in the sixteenth century wrote, " Sweet Thames run softly, till I end my song": it still runs softly enough but could never be called sweet in any gustatory{{U}} (1) {{/U}}. If its brown-black color{{U}} (2) {{/U}}sound sufficient warning we could, but will{{U}} (3) {{/U}}recalling the dreadful things that Thames oarsmen say a mere mouthful will do to anyone{{U}} (4) {{/U}}. Probably Spenser was using the word "sweet" in the sense of "dear" rather than of{{U}} (5) {{/U}}. Not necessarily though, for the river was still, a century after Spenser, clear enough for{{U}} (6) {{/U}}to dive into it from the terraces of their waterside mansions. However, Spenser would probably{{U}} (7) {{/U}}to learn that today the river is chemically in better shape than it has been for many years—a fact borne out by the{{U}} (8) {{/U}}of fish now to be found, and angled for, in the reaches of Central London, that is, between,{{U}} (9) {{/U}}, Battersea and Tower Bridges.
More important, perhaps, than its{{U}} (10) {{/U}}or opacity, the Thames is an{{U}} (11) {{/U}}vantage point from which to see London,{{U}} (12) {{/U}}how the great machine works and how it has changed. The river traffic was once brisker: engravings of the Thames around London Bridge{{U}} (13) {{/U}}depict almost as many craft on the water as buildings on the bank. Traders and ferries plied up, down and across,{{U}} (14) {{/U}}at the numerous water-steps and warehouses{{U}} (15) {{/U}}. For Romantics, seeking a location to sympathize with a mood, this is free; the river is a{{U}} (16) {{/U}}source. By night the floodlighting of St. Paul’s, the myriad bulbs on Chelsea Bridge,{{U}} (17) {{/U}}the black liquid ribbon that winds between them. By day there are a hundred visits to make the spirit{{U}} (18) {{/U}}, from Westminster to the Pool of London, and downstream to Greenwich. In a gender mood it is pleasant to move upstream, where the river seems narrower, and there imitate the mud-larks,{{U}} (19) {{/U}}the shore at Strand-on-the-Green or Isleworth; it is calmer here, and{{U}} (20) {{/U}}ducks seems almost to bring a whiff of the open countryside.