O'ER this huge town, rife with intestine wars, Whence as from monstrous sacrificial shrines Pillars of smoke climb heavenward, Night inclines Black brows majestical with glimmering stars. Her dewy silence soothes life's angry jars: And like a mother's wan white face, who pines Above her children's turbulent ways, so shines The moon athwart the narrow cloudy bars. Now toiling multitudes that hustling crush Each other in the fateful strife for breath And, hounded on by diverse hungers, rush Across the prostrate ones that groan beneath, Are swathed within the universal hush, As life exchanges semblances with death. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MOTHER AND POET; TURIN, AFTER THE NEWS FROM GAETA, 1861 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING BEN BOLT by THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH ON LIBERTY AND SLAVERY by GEORGE MOSES HORTON IN THE MILE END ROAD by AMY LEVY MADRIGAL: 109 by MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI |