Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IF IT COMES TO THIS, by JAMES OPPENHEIM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IF IT COMES TO THIS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Bitter, bitter
Last Line: Or are you an empty word to cover our feeble spirits?
Subject(s): Poverty; Social Protest; Wealth; Riches; Fortunes


BITTER, bitter,
A night that kills with a perishing wind,
The cold soaks the tight houses, fighting the fires ...

The air about the street-lamps is blue with cold,
The moon's a disc of ice frozen to the sky,
The streets are whipped clean of people: the wanderer blows into the nearest doorway ...

Yet before the concert hall
The chauffeur sat two hours in the rich woman's limousine
While she fed her soul with delicious music indoors ...
The policeman passing thought that he slept, and shook him ...
He did not sleep: he was dead of the eating cold ...

And what is our Art, and our skyscraping Commerce and Traffic,
And what our steam-heated Civilization,
And what this worry over our tiny Souls,
Yea, what this wealth pulled from the Earth by machines and so great that we waste it,
If it all comes to this?

Benign Brotherhood, do we really want you?
Or are you an empty word to cover our feeble spirits?





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