Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LITANIES OF THE CITY, by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LITANIES OF THE CITY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Blessed be thou, my city, for thy day
Last Line: Be blessed, -- be accurst -- for evermore!
Subject(s): London


BLESSED be thou, my City, for thy day:
Chaotic revel woven of dance and fire;
The sun trails flame along each level way,
Enkindling every window with desire.
Accursed be thou, my City, for thy night:
The rain makes slippery slime of every street,
The lamps of lust their crimson globes repeat,
Man's soul is trapped within a maze of light.
Blessed be thou, my City, for thy throngs:
They move, processions vast, for evermore;
Bearing a million joys, a million wrongs
Over the earth, like seas without a shore.
Accursed be thou, my City, for thy men:
They waste their energy and waste their pain,
And are blown hither and thither like fine rain,
And, weary of life, long yet for life again.
Blessed be thou, my City, for thy love:
For women made of marvellous bones and blood,
Uniting hovels beneath and heavens above
In one vast litany of joy, one passion-flood.
Accursed be thou, my City, for thy lust
That hides and leers behind thy cloak of night:
A mockery of force, a beauty-blight,
Which clasps a skeleton, and fawns on dust.
Blessed be thou, my City, for thy strife:
Epic sublime of wrath and wrong untold,
Which makes thy streets rage with excessive life,
Commends thy commerce, glorifies thy gold.
Accursed be thou, my City, for thy hate:
Flower of weakness, and of vanity, fruit;
Poised on a putrid stem from poisoned root
It springs -- and it contains the seed of fate.
Blessed be thou, my City, for thy work:
The restless hands that lure the challenging mind.
Grim, gorgeous palaces loom from out the murk,
And up their staring walls there crawl mankind.
Accursed be thou, my City, for thy toil:
Timid, or mean, or plotting gods half-hewn,
It casts up smoke and scaffoldings to the moon,
And crazes itself with hope and with turmoil.
Blessed be thou, my City, for thy rest:
For broad, deep-bosomed, slow, reposeful days,
For calm and ebony nights, when night seems best:
A mistress-mother, silencing vain praise!
Accursed be thou, my City, for thy sleep:
A rickety attic for a day of pains,
Where we may drink cold wine and count our gains,
Lust's pale and withered flowers buried deep.
Blessed be thou, my City, for thy night:
The dusk slips off her scarlet robe, black-lined;
She solemnly bares her nudity, dazzling white,
Source of all life and fountain of mankind.
Accursed be thou, my City, for thy day:
Smoky with sombre feasts and dull with tears,
She scrawls despair upon the brows of years
Which slowly move, like hungry men, away.
O City of night and light, of mire and fire,
O City of song and wrong, of roar and gore,
Eternity's self stamped in a vain desire!
Be blessed, -- be accurst -- for evermore!





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