1. The City

 

The subject proposed – Remarks upon George Crabbe’s Poetry – Fortune described – An impoverished city – Rude manner of the inhabitants – Ruinous effects of the sex trade –The city life: more generally considered: evils of it – The youthful laborer – The old man: his soliloquy – The sick poor: their pharmaceutical – The dying pauper – The city priest.

   The city life, where every care still reigns,
O’er youthful peasants and declining swains;
What labor yields, and what, that labor past,
Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last;
What remain the picture of the poor,
Recall a song – the Muse shall sing once more.
   Gone are those times, when in heroic verse,
Their Country’s honor or its joys rehearse;
Few poets laud in captivating strains,
The beauty of long, industrial plains;
And chimera to all the pains we feel,
The vibrancy the city lights reveal;
While those who condemned the pastoral lay,
Might damn a city in our modern day.
   In ancient Troy, in Priam’s bloody reign,
Around the city walls, and twice again – But
Shall this poem the classical prolong?
Mechanical tribute to an old song.
From fair market price do I not soon stray
Where homage, not the evening, paves the way?
   Yes. The Muse sings in the Romantic Age,
And all since then has fitted to a page,
She sings of peasants’ pipes, but the throng, now,
Chase muff around and like their pleasures low;
The Muse for all her masses, has no rhymes,
As concord lacks in our discordant times.
Save I, what son of verse would even share,
In heroic, eighteenth century care?
Or would the rarer flower of the field,
Increase the value of the garden’s yield?
   Would land enclosure suit my modern hand
With repercussions felt throughout the land?
Still, a Romantic thought I needn’t ask,
For Rip Van Winkle ‘twas no easy task –
Who went to sleep two hundred years ago,
And dreamed the working class had caught their foe,
He woke today supposing King George well,
But wondered if the vote was worth this hell.
I grant indeed Postmodernism fair,
When money grows and there’s no other care,
But when amid this new romance we trace,
This postmodernist might lose his place –
As Fortune smiles on some, with fervid ray,
On some donned heads, or some other array,
While some with softer head and fainter heart,
Deplore their Fortune, but still play their part.
Then shall I – this most caught out kidder – abide,
In H.D., out of some poetic pride?
   No, my lesson comes from an unique Bard,
Where groves and happy dales are duly marred,
Where the real endemic cares he relates,
Exemplify his pastoral’s finest traits.
George Crabbe once wrought a picture of the cot,
As truth would paint it, and as Bards had not,
Nor you, dear reader, a poor pastiche disdain,
And say, my latest song is sung in vain;
O’ercome with hunger and still losing time,
Allow me the example of his rhyme –
Would George Crabbe deny me a little bread,
If I, for Village life, went downtown instead?
Let this passing song distaste o’erpower,
And make you more forgiving from this hour.
   Lo! How this city with steel beams spread o’er,
Sprawls in its greyness for the rich and poor.
Like a dark labyrinth the grid appears,
Where all shall walk their block despite their fears.
Fortune, that real kidder, I yet defy,
Looks o’er the land, with greyness in her eye;
Supremely she stands, her arms spread afar,
She rules this City, her subjects at war;
With laughter she mocks the hope of toil,
Success is hidden in her winding coil;
Her song is a child’s in these busy streets,
Till the music stops all dash ‘round their seats;
O’er brightest hopes Fortune casts her dark shade,
Denying to good hearts that light must fade;
As mingled rays her promises abound,
And an uncertain splendor shines around,
For, no certainty can dress or adorn,
The threads come loose as she stitches with scorn –
Whose lips, in vain, are like the two-faced rose,
As crimson flush and pointy thorns disclose;
Whose only reward is fool’s happiness,
Poverty her fine – so then, deep distress.
   Here beaten roam the poetical class,
And true, ‘tis woe for every lad and lass,
Who without clear prospects from markets fly,
And barter their exchange with wanton eye.
   Here, too, the lawless merchant of the block,
Draws from his cloak the mind-altering rock,
To feed the street claims the labor of his day,
And yes, Vice steals his nightly rest away.
   Where is the nymph, who, daily tidings done,
With long kisses played down the setting sun,
Who, with wide eyes and in earnest love shall,
With forthright feeling, not suffer to fall?
While a large swain, exciting and strong,
Engaged some welcome slipping of her thong,
And fell beneath her – lay’d – while far around
Deep thunder rose, and they returned the sound.
Where now is she? Their lovemaking a sin –
A sprite they each regret, has seen their skin.
A complaint has been filed with the law,
The swain was roundly beaten to the raw,
Exchanging what they shared for what each lost,
And charged the unfair fine, they pay the cost,
No love is offered, only tawdriness,
Exchanging innocence for bawdiness.
   Here, wondering long amid the downtown core,
I sought the glamour of the City roar,
Assault and Wrong and Fear usurped her sass,
For the sick, conning, unemployed class,
Who, might be skilled to trap and skin a hide,
Yet in the hunt, would let the prey abide.
Out until late, and after getting high,
On the homeless man fix your eagle eye,
Who wants money – he won’t be forgotten –
Spare him some change because life is rotten.
   How lucky is the goose who leaves the land,
Who aims his wing o’er gentle sun and sand,
At the least sign of frost his wings are spread,
Like him I longed to be but never fled,
Couldn’t fly from the brutal gales that reign,
But cried – Ah! Hapless we who yet remain,
Who yet remain to trod on slush and snow,
And curse the floorboard heaters, row by row,
Till some lamb’s month the thaw ensues,
And nicer thoughts the tired mind pursues –
A charity by which our ilk is fed,
The foodbank – now, a warmer walk ahead.
   Yet these are scenes where Fortune’s slight-of-hand,
Only deals rubbish to the urban land,
Hers is the fault if the City concedes,
To poor public funding for those with needs;
Yet look at other scenes fairer in view,
Where plenty smiles – alas, she smiles for few,
And those who have not, who view those who have more,
Are outsiders who don’t fit in the store,
The wealth around them makes them twice as poor.
Or will you deem the welfare cheque enough,
Your tax dollar pays out when life gets tough?
Go then. Spend time in any rooming house,
Live with the lazy and be a good souse,
See the unemployed, disabled, and cons,
The addicts, the artists, the wayward sons;
Behold them each day aloof in the street,
In the cold winter, in the summer heat,
See them thank the Lord for their daily bread,
And more than just bread, see them pray they are fed.
Just down the road their sluggish steps pursue,
As their poor clothes imbibe the evening dew,
Then no further – their time was yesterday –
Without hope, way does not lead onto way.
   Amid this class often poetic zeal
Takes less pay for the less common ideal;
Here may you see a youth of solid frame,
Contend with canonized poets of fame,
And making some progress and loth to yield,
He refuses a more lucrative field,
As Time’s arrow speeds to the very last,
Less future holds and more shall hold his past,
His poetry that once was current dress
Reveals his better days and shabbiness.
   Yet grant us dreams – ‘tis not for you to tell –
Though the clothes are poor the heart is not well;
Or will you say that dreams take second place,
Hard work and goals, and steady wins the race?
Yet trifle not with Man’s true heart desire,
Nor criticize his visions by the fire,
Pleasure not pain, hope, not despair, are such,
As any human being has right to touch.
   And you, who would love a life without work,
Who think your hardest task would be the cork;
Go, if unemployed your good comforts make,
Go look within and see who’s on the take –
If he works not – that drooping weary sire.
Or they – if the children’s looks be not dire.
Or she who only wants what’s best for all,
And can’t bear to see her family fall.
   Nor yet can labor herself make for these,
Life’s latest comforts, peace of mind, and ease,
For you’d still see that hoary swain, whose age
Can with no cares except his own engage,
Who sits on the ledge and begs to receive,
Alms from the young girl – but there’s no reprieve –
For as a young man a girl fair as she,
Might have given her hand, not her pity.
   He once played soccer on Varsity field,
Having the spirit to strike and not yield,
Full many friends he had and looks out,
For acknowledgement from people about,
He greets one or two with hope in his eyes,
But gains swift rebuke – walks away – no, flies,
Living almost alone with constant pain,
He asks for alms earning mainly disdain,
As a young man he was mentally ill,
But there was no real cure, only a pill;
Now expressing his regret is in vain,
No one really wants to hear him complain.
   Often you see him down by the Great Lake,
In midwinter, when most that place forsake,
Often, he murmurs to the winds that blow,
Who demand no reason for his sad, sullen woe,
And roused by his passion to the depths speaks,
To every wave that rises, crests, and breaks.
   “Oh, Great Lake, if you were the boundless sea,”
“You would be unfathomable to me.”
“You would be Ocean in all his measure,”
“From China to Peru at your pleasure.”
“Yet only a Lake and landlocked you are,”
“For all your cares you have not travelled far.”
“Much as I am, you are tied to the shore –”
“So, I fathom – you must at times want more;”
“Haven’t you wished you were more than a Lake,”
“Who would for Ocean this City forsake?”
   “These many waves, all this water I see,”
“Are no one’s gain and a sad care for me,”
“These rushing waves which all rise, crest, and break,”
“Are like the City, rushing for your sake;”
“For your sake, I rush to the City shore,”
“A wave that has a moment then no more,”
“Only Ocean has more powerful waves,”
“Ocean decides who he destroys or saves,”
“Would I was not a wave of the Great Lake,”
“But Tsunami, who could this City shake.”
   Thus, the poetical man thinks aloud,
When he is fed-up and tired of the crowd.
   Theirs is the house which hold the City poor,
With a lamp lit beside the golden door,
Herein dwell huddled, yearning to be free,
The masses, the tired, in their Liberty,
Wretched refuse, and tempest-tossed have come,
From teeming, ancient lands to make a home,
They are offered shelter and allowance,
Medication, counselling, and a chance.
Say you, there is no such house in our Land?
‘Tis worldwide welcomed by a beacon-hand.
With eyes that are mild and with silent lips,
The Mother of Exiles takes all hardships.
   Here may the sick approach their final doom,
Here reside, amid scenes of grief and gloom,
Where low groans from some sad apartment flow,
Drowned in the loud noise of the streets below;
Here men sorrow, who have no next of kin –
No family – but a system looks in,
Whose laws, indeed, for ruined age provide,
Care, in the event life might subside,
And this service is by tax dollars paid,
By Charity, the balance owing made.
   Say you, the bank has bought your newest home,
And credit paid the furniture to come?
Who press the downy couch, while bills advance,
In glaring print, to catch your sidelong glance?
Who live from cheque to cheque to make ends meet,
For without that big box life’s incomplete?
Who, in relief, that final notice, pay,
With pennies saved for such a rainy day?
How would you bear verily poor to be?
A true debtor within society.
How would you bear the price of Charity?
Humiliated by humility.
   Beyond each golden door four walls divide
The City’s refuse from the streets outside,
Here every man must learn to cook his meal,
And clean his clothes, and bathe, and fairly deal,
And tidy up, and learn frugality,
Become productive in society,
There on a dingy mattress, reclining,
In self-regard, and in life, declining,
To melancholy, then to more disease,
For him no friend his final days shall ease,
Nothing to get – he cannot live by stealth –
So gets nothing – sans happiness, sans health.
   Yet soon as social workers look within,
Intake ensues with perfunctory din,
Anon, one enters, her stoic eyes replete,
To turn life unfulfilled to life complete,
With looks unaltered by this scene of woe,
Stopping bad ways, she bids the system go,
And bids the whole system around him fly,
Projecting only qualm, then gives a sigh,
A true Stoic in perfect self-control,
Who claims despite passion a bell shall toll,
Paid by government this message to perfect,
Whose mandate, by this truth, shall not neglect.
   Assessment of the client she’s assigned,
Proves whether to his fate he is resigned,
Unless, by some social intervention,
His life remaining might prove worth mention,
Confidential questions are hurried o’er,
Lest the obvious need prove something more,
This drooping client long inured to pain,
And long unheeded, makes a social gain –
He begins, now, the company to crave
Of man, before he sinks into the grave.
   But ere his death some moral doubts arise,
Some simple fears support workers excise,
Fain, would they ask the hoary swain to prove,
His life is more this world’s than that above,
For this, he’s sent to live in long-term care,
Where he may for prolonged life best prepare,
And does not he, his doctor, standing near,
Know by long life, there’s no more death to fear?
Ah, yes – a liquor of a different stock,
And unlike his, fermented by a block;
A jovial youth, who thinks his tireless task,
As much as God or Man has right to ask;
No rest he takes and weighs no labor light,
To rounds each morning and on call at night,
None better skilled the hoary swain to guide,
To urge his health, to cheer him or to chide,
A scholar keen, a cut above the grade,
Takes all complaints, knows how each pain is made,
Then, while such honors bloom around his head,
Shall he sit sadly by the sick man’s bed?
To bear bad news he knows not, or with zeal,
To combat fears, he does not really feel!
   Thus, fickle Fortune deems he wants no more,
Her coil has snapped, his bitter hour is o’er,
Naked he was born and leaves this world as poor.
   For each man’s hopes her answer stays the same –
With this world, we depart as we once came,
Born in tears, we yet die with as much pain,
Dust to dust, or only ashes remain –
No more. O Fortune! Your fools start to hear,
By your cruel hand this City made us fear,
No more shall peasants take a humble bow,
‘Tis heaven’s riches that you’ve squandered now.
   Here to the church behold no mourners come,
Sedately prays the priest his prayer dumb,
No City children shall their games suspend,
To see the lonely hearse, its journey, wend,
Yet, he was one in all his idle sport,
A true knight honored in their little court,
Who jousted like they for each maiden’s hand,

    And followed on their quests across the land.
    Him, none shall follow to his grave and mourn,
    The chapel is bare, the churchyard forlorn,
    No memorial, no farewell, no wreath,
    No widow, no son, nothing to bequeath,
    No bells toll here, and only birds sing,
    To welcome the worms his garden shall bring.
    The good priest has discharged his weighty care,
    And quits the reverence of his silent prayer,
    Save a man of the cloth, who shall atone?
    When one so blameless must else die alone!