Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN THE CITY AT NIGHT, by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN THE CITY AT NIGHT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Towards the end of night
Last Line: Suck in our helpless lives, destroy this dreadful spot!
Subject(s): London; Night; Bedtime


Towards the end of night
Life swelters in its gore,
The roaring wheels run down,
The flames of the gas no more
Stab at the iron sky
In hissing mockery:
And the city takes such rest
As its torn nerves know best.
O night, that like an eyeless ghost dost prowl
'Twixt granite walls, with talons dripping blood:
O night, eared, feathered, like an enormous owl:
O night, -- dark vulture that destroys its brood, --
O night of hate and death, O night of nights,
We pray to thee, vampire, for the death-stupor of sleep,
For we are weary of foolish babble and lights.
Along the dismal empty streets, stretching end-lessly away,
The darkened houses stand, in a mournful dull array,
Like wretched starving folk that silently make show
Of asking you for bread:
And their windows pale with the starless sky o'erhead
Are as maniac faces white with woe,
And agony of the living dead.
Their doors are barred as the doors of tombs;
And alone in the unlit shuttered rooms
Sprawl inert bundles of breathing flesh,
The weavers of life's mesh.
One moved, daylong, amid victory:
And one who desires no more to be
Is helpless as he!
O night that makest all our effort vain,
Our lips tremble for thee, our eyes do burn:
To some sleep is given; to some, to turn
And writhe, and toss, and dream in horrible pain
Of the ghastliness of lust,
And of every fear and hate!
O night, whelm our dry dust
In sleep's unfathomed stream,
So that not even in dream
We can recall our fate!
Here and there a belfry-tower,
Be it prison, church, or tomb,
No one can say: an arm of gloom
Beckoning to the sky to tell
That not a ray can pierce this hell, --
Lifts its sardonic pride and power,
And with jarring and funereal boom
Beats a malison on the hour.
Here and there a van, iron-wheeled,
Rolls like a hearse unlit and sealed;
And behind it, the echoes in wild affray
Clang and shudder far away:
Here and there one footstep-beat
Like shattering thunder, shakes the street.
Here and there one white arc-light
Intensifies the crushing night.
O night, that like a blear-eyed cast dost prowl,
Sated with blood, gorged with the city's soul:
Corpse-snatcher and defiler of the dead,
Stalking the city with sepulchral tread:
O night of horror, we -- we heed thee not!
Oblivion now doth blot
The last hope and the last thought from our brains:
Thy victory remains:
Suck in our helpless lives, destroy this dreadful spot!





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