Les plus lus ▸
James Stephens
While walking through the trams and cars
I chanced to look up at the sky,
And saw that it was full of stars.
So starry-sown that you could not,
With any care, have stuck a pin
Through any single vacant spot.
And some were shining furiously,
And some were big and some were small.
But all were beautiful to see.
Blue stars and gold, a sky of grey.
The air between a velvet pall ;
I could not take my eyes away.
And there I sang this little psalm
Most awkwardly, because I was
Standing between a car and tram.
The noise of the city sounds below me.
It clashes against the houses
And rises like smoke through the narrow streets.
It polishes the marble fronts of houses.
Grating itself against them.
And they shine in the lamplight
And cast their echoes back upon the asphalt of the streets.
But I hear no sound of your voice.
The city is incoherent — trivial.
And my brain aches with emptiness.
I wandered through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:
How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appalls,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.
But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.
I look into the fire
a whole city of light
burials plague it every instant
fleet hands rising
as if from a man without name
not concerned about sleep
we must shut up shop
on a meat-dark night
business keeping us naked
in a rich city
having already spent
one year’s share of our fear
the place drawn out of
a quiet heavy nothing
like a letter from me to myself
each thinking the other a fool
every city is all
the cities in the world
their neighbors in the country pay
in blood and little supper
in the city lately blown up
we fear the never-done raven
how superficial a fisher
without loss or compass
the thing just may get by
this fast city made of lead
is not the only answer
the truth is dangerous
having so many windows
if I escape I will be a thief
and sleep brokenly in the morning
at dinner
I bet on the bone
fires serve
the city up
I made a jade city for the heart
to have a heart in
I hope to be possessed by evil
but very civilly
war comes from the east
black like the bird who takes sad children
the city conquered play
I have not lived but to fight
I tend to business with old
man’s hands
as full of violence
as a small city
two ices that ought to be moons
in a garden gone bad