Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MONODY ON THE ASTOR HOUSE, by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS


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MONODY ON THE ASTOR HOUSE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Lament, o muse, and heave a suspiration
Last Line: Shades of the woolworth tower!—another year!
Alternate Author Name(s): F. P. A.
Subject(s): Lament; New York City - Buildings; Skyscrapers; Woolworth Building, New York


Lament, O Muse, and heave a suspiration,
Make me an epicedium, a threne,
An ode to fit my humid lachrimation,
A dirge ultramarine!
For heavy I, and supercharged with woe,
On reading that the Astor House must go.

Thou noble inn where oft I (Crys of "Louder")
Repaired to find a frugal bit of lunch;
Where grew the city's only perfect chowder
And hot Jamaica punch—
So deep my woe that thou art to be razed
I question it can fittingly be phrazed.

Farewell, farewell! If Byron I may borrow—
I read of thee in many an Alger tome,
Unthinking that, in age and bowed with sorrow,
I'd spill to thee a pome;
Unknowing that some day I should deplore
The announcement that thou wert to be no more.

Yet though my trend be super-sentimental,
Thine end I truly do not mind a bit;
My grief for that is wholly incidental,
This is my woe, to wit:
The riveting and blasting that I hear—
Shades of the Woolworth tower!—another year!





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