Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE NIGHT OF PLEASURE, by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER Poet's Biography First Line: With pleasure-seeking folk Last Line: Or at least give them sleep! Subject(s): London; Night; Pleasure; Bedtime | ||||||||
WITH pleasure-seeking folk The City hums and stirs, All who have gold to buy her Are pleasure's worshippers. They are drunken, but what matter? To sorrow were they born? They may be sick or silent Upon the morrow morn. Open the theatre! Let the mad mob within Be stunned with speed and glitter, And deafened with din: In furious vibration Let voices bawl and roar, Upon life's streaming altars They sacrifice once more. Meanwhile, without, the starving Tramp wearily to and fro: As the chance of life has shaped men, It breaks them, high or low: Soon the game palls and sickens, Packed audiences rise; They must sleep, if they would struggle For another day as prize. Down with the muffling curtain On the dance which darts like fire, Through quivering nerve and fibre, Fierce arrows of desire: Out to the night, while music Is braying and clashing still Its dissonant wild rhythms That leap with prodigious will! The roaring hall of revel Gushes forth into the night Light, and a jostling throng Of mortals taking flight. Pale and strained are the faces As if through flames they won: Priests are these, and victims, And gods, all three in one. They break and melt and scatter; Into the dark they drift. Was it all but a shaking Of that veil which none may lift? I know not. Terribly changeless Stands the city of flint and fire: All over it there is silence, And quenched is the torch of desire. They hay drained their black narcotic, To-morrow will be pain; Meanwhile the wind is flinging Thin gusts of sooty rain. They are nauseated with madness, They are too bored to weep: Oh, give them death, what matter? Or at least give them sleep! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BREATH OF NIGHT by RANDALL JARRELL HOODED NIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP by ROBINSON JEFFERS WORKING OUTSIDE AT NIGHT by DENIS JOHNSON POEM TO TAKE BACK THE NIGHT by JUNE JORDAN COOL DARK ODE by DONALD JUSTICE POEM TO BE READ AT 3 A.M by DONALD JUSTICE ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT by BOB KAUFMAN ARIZONA POEMS: 2. MEXICAN QUARTER by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER |
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