Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO ONE ASLEEP, by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO ONE ASLEEP, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: With a rush and a growl at cannon street
Last Line: Here is man's eldest son?'
Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Sleep; Social Classes; Weariness; Work; Workers; Caste; Fatigue


With a rush and a growl at Cannon Street,
And a jest like an oath, in he leapt
'Mong the clerklings demure and discreet,
But 'ere Deptford he slept.

Slumber hangs in the eyelids of intrigue,
Sleep entraps drunken feet from beneath,
But before such an infinite fatigue
It is almost like death.

Nay, the man might be dead before our eyes.
Pale and worn, dulled and still, shrunk and cowed,
Of a truth he will look no otherwise
When he's wrapt in his shroud!

What's his trade? Does he toil among the ships,
On the rails? in the streets? Who can guess
From the things that long since were finger-tips,
Or the grime on his dress?

For at best here is only one more slave
Of the toil that has used and outworn
Half our kind from the cradle to the grave
Since the day Man was born.

Painful Science proclaims him half a brute,
Old Religion maintains him God's heir:
But he knows not the matter in dispute:
An' he knew, would he care?

There's the cant of 'the Workman's Glorious Reign';
There's the cant of 'what Effort can teach';
There's the cant of 'the Discipline of Pain':
Does he hear when they preach?

'Summer burns, winter nips with snow and ice;
It is good for a man to beget;
Food and fire are the jewels of great price,
And to drink's to forget:

'In the morning at dawn the "hooters" cry,
And at eve about dark work is o'er;
You must work an' you do not want to die':—
That's his creed at the core.

Though he knows not the trade of his sire,
Nor can tell whence his grandfather came;
Though his caste is a bastard which the mire
Aye begets out of shame;

Though the grime has crept inward to his heart,
From the things that were once finger-tips;
Though the sweat from his brow shall not depart
Nor the curse from his lips;

Shall you scoff at the tenets of his creed,
And aver he's a leper to shun,
Or confess, 'Here is Tragic Cain indeed,
Here is Man's eldest son?'





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