The yellow gas is fired from street to street <br />past rows of heartless homes and hearths unlit, <br />dead churches, and the unending pavement beat <br />by crowds - say rather, haggard shades that flit <br /> <br />round nightly haunts of their delusive dream, <br />where'er our paradisal instinct starves: - <br />till on the utmost post, its sinuous gleam <br />crawls in the oily water of the wharves; <br /> <br />where Homer's sea loses his keen breath, hemm'd <br />what place rebellious piles were driven down - <br />the priestlike waters to this task condemn'd <br />to wash the roots of the inhuman town! - <br /> <br />where fat and strange-eyed fish that never saw <br />the outer deep, broad halls of sapphire light, <br />glut in the city's draught each nameless maw: <br />- and there, wide-eyed unto the soulless night, <br /> <br />methinks a drown'd maid's face might fitly show <br />what we have slain, a life that had been free, <br />clean, large, nor thus tormented - even so <br />as are the skies, the salt winds and the sea. <br /> <br />Ay, we had saved our days and kept them whole, <br />to whom no part in our old joy remains, <br />had felt those bright winds sweeping thro' our soul <br />and all the keen sea tumbling in our veins, <br /> <br />had thrill'd to harps of sunrise, when the height <br />whitens, and dawn dissolves in virgin tears, <br />or caught, across the hush'd ambrosial night, <br />the choral music of the swinging spheres, <br /> <br />or drunk the silence if nought else - But no! <br />and from each rotting soul distill in dreams <br />a poison, o'er the old earth creeping slow, <br />that kills the flowers and curdles the live streams, <br /> <br />that taints the fresh breath of re-risen day <br />and reeks across the pale bewildered moon: <br />- shall we be cleans'd and how? I only pray, <br />red flame or deluge, may that end be soon!<br /><br />Christopher John Brennan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-yellow-gas/
