O'er this huge town, rife with intestine wars, <br />Whence as from monstrous sacrificial shrines <br />Pillars of smoke climb heavenward, Night inclines <br />Black brows majestical with glimmering stars. <br />Her dewy silence soothes life's angry jars: <br />And like a mother's wan white face, who pines <br />Above her children's turbulent ways, so shines <br />The moon athwart the narrow cloudy bars. <br /> <br />Now toiling multitudes that hustling crush <br />Each other in the fateful strife for breath, <br />And, hounded on by diverse hungers, rush <br />Across the prostrate ones that groan beneath, <br />Are swathed within the universal hush, <br />As life exchanges semblances with death.<br /><br />Mathilde Blind<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/manchester-by-night/
