Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE DEATH OF OLD BENNET THE NEWS-CRIER, by ANONYMOUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE DEATH OF OLD BENNET THE NEWS-CRIER, by                    
First Line: "one evening, when the sun was just gone down"
Last Line: "homer and bennet were in this agreed, / homer was blind, and bennet could not read"
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers;death;grief;news;silence; "dead, The;sorrow;sadness;


ONE evening, when the sun was just gone down,
As I was walking through the noisy town,
A sudden silence through each street was spread,
As if the soul of London had been fled.
Much I enquired the cause, but could not hear,
Till Fame, so frightened that she did not dare
To raise her voice, thus whispered in my ear:
'Bennet, the prince of hawkers, is no more,
Bennet, my herald on the British shore;
Bennet, by whom I own myself outdone,
Though I an hundred mouths, he had but one.
He, when the list'ning town he would amuse,
Made Echo tremble with his bloody news;
No more shall Echo now his voice return,
Echo for ever must in silence mourn.
Lament, ye heroes, who frequent the wars,
The great proclaimer of your dreadful scars.
Thus wept the conqueror that the world o'ercame,
Homer was wanting to enlarge his fame:
Homer, the first of hawkers that is known,
Great news from Troy cried up and down the town.
None like him has there been for ages past,
Till our Stentorian Bennet came at last:
Homer and Bennet were in this agreed,
Homer was blind, and Bennet could not read.'





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