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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
EAT AND WALK, by JAMES NORMAN HALL Poet's Biography First Line: There's a three-penny lunch on dover street Last Line: The rule of the place is eat and walk. | |||
THERE'S A THREE-PENNY Lunch on Dover Street With a cardboard sign in the window: EAT. Three steps down to the basement room, Two gas jets in a sea of gloom; Four-square counter, stove in the center, Heavy odor of food as you enter; A kettle of soup as large as a vat, Potatoes, cabbage, morsels of fat Bubbling up in a savory smoke -- Food for the gods when the gods are broke. A wrecked divinity serving it up, A hunk of bread and a steaming cup; Three penny each, or two for a nickel; An extra cent for a relish of pickle. Slopping it up, no time for the graces -- Why should they care, these men with faces Gaunt with hunger, battered with weather, In walking the streets for days together? No delicate sipping, no leisurely talk -- The rule of the place is Eat and Walk. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN FLANDERS by JAMES NORMAN HALL THE CRICKETERS OF FLANDERS by JAMES NORMAN HALL A LONDON FETE by COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE BARCAROLE: DE VIGNY by E. G. B. UPON THE HILL BEFORE CENTREVILLE by GEORGE HENRY BOKER AT ROMEO'S TOMB by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR A BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 42 by THOMAS CAMPION SECOND BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 66 by THOMAS CAMPION SAPPHO by GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS ON THE PROSPECT OF ESTABLISHING A PANTISOCRACY IN AMERICA by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE |
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