Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE NIGHT OF PLEASURE, by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE NIGHT OF PLEASURE, by                     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!





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