A morn, a sallow lamp-lit morn,
A dawn that never breaks to day!
Old, old the faces, and forlorn;
The hearts look out, so seared, so grey!
It is as if some upturned stone
Had flung to light a vermin rout
For things misfeatured, souls unknown,
Stagger in blind amaze about.
Along their gleaming lines of light
The charging trams go, head to ground;
Out from the drifting pathways, white
The faces flash like faces drowned!
And there with painted features drear,
And eyes whose pathos still is sweet,
The hunted hunters prowl and peer
Their lair the long, slow-surging street.
King Street.
written byArthur Henry Adams
© Arthur Henry Adams