Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BACK STREETS, by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BACK STREETS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You that have gazed long on the city's splendour
Last Line: And the earth is as if it ne'er had been.
Subject(s): Greed; London; Avarice; Cupidity


You that have gazed long on the city's splendour,
Behold its life, how thick and red it runs!
From dawn to dusk and on through countless suns,
Self-spending, self-creating, fixed, untender,
Coarse, deathless, changeless! Do you homage render
To that which with its power the spirit stuns:
And will, until all things are as they once
Were, in the grip of Death, the sole amender.
Thousands of years ago thus in the grime
Life struggled, as it struggles on to-day,
As it must struggle till its latest scene:
No change shall ever be except in time,
Until all things as dreams are swept away,
And the earth is as if it ne'er had been.





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