IN A MODERN CITY

Dreary fog and drizzling sleet,

And a lamp-lit track of slime;

Phantoms dim in the misty street,

Vanishing, streaked with grime;

Overhead in a spurious night,

Formed by the vapors dun,

Wraith-like globes of haloed light,

Mocking the hidden sun;—

Children, shod in sodden shoes,

( That is a sight that hurts;)

Women, furrowing filthy ooze

In thin, bedraggled skirts;

Horses, lashed with cruel zest,

Ploughing the fumid fog;

Hark!... a car, with no arrest,

Killing a howling dog;—

Clanging trams, with haggard men

Forcing their way within,—

Some compressed in a steaming-pen,

Others soaked to the skin;

Smoke and soot in the murky sky,

Death in the tainted air,

Each aware, were he to die,

None in the crowd would care;—

Here and there a carriage fine,

Cleaving the reeking mass;

Scowling faces, ranged in line,

Watching the rich man pass;

Envy's gleam in many an eye,

Hate in many a threat;

Why should he be warm and dry,

And they be cold and wet?

Pictures these of the “Passing Show,”

Scenes in a world gone wrong,

Wretched weaklings, born to woe,

Crushed by the brutal strong!

Breaking hearts that crave release,

Slaves to a ceaseless strife!...

I will go back to sylvan peace

And a sight of the Source of Life.