They used to call you Cottonopolis, <br />My Manchester, in that far-distant time <br />Where smog from smokestacks, gathered grease and grime <br />In consort, stalked your tawdry terraced streets. <br />Those were the days that you were in your prime, <br />Queen of the North, cold crowned with drizzling clouds, <br />Whose soot and showers fell co-mingled down <br />To blacken flags and cobbles, intertwined <br />With lofty spires of chimneys which the globe <br />Thought signified the god of industry. <br />In clattering clogs and tattered rags you bore, <br />Hid underneath your royal purple robe <br />The awful truth of dark reality, <br />Beneath the heather of the Pennine Moor.<br /><br />C Richard Miles<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/manchester-memories/
