O'ER this huge town, rife with intestine wars, Whence as from monstrous sacrificial shrines Pillars of smoke climb heavenward, Night inclines Black brows majestical with glimmering stars. Her dewy silence soothes life's angry jars: And like a mother's wan white face, who pines Above her children's turbulent ways, so shines The moon athwart the narrow cloudy bars. Now toiling multitudes that hustling crush Each other in the fateful strife for breath And, hounded on by diverse hungers, rush Across the prostrate ones that groan beneath, Are swathed within the universal hush, As life exchanges semblances with death. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...O SOUTHLAND! by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE; THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE LINES TO WILLIAM LINLEY WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE HIDDEN JOYS by SAMUEL LAMAN BLANCHARD A SCENE ON THE BANKS OF THE HUDSON by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT DIPPING CANDLES IN VERMONT by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY NEXT MORNING by HENRY CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL HALLOWED GROUND by MERLING D. CLYDE PERSIAN [ORIENTAL] ECLOGUES: 1. SELIM; OR, SHEPHERD'S MORAL by WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759) |