| THE city's heat is like a leaden pall— | |
| Its lowered lamps glow in the midnight air | |
| Like mammoth orange-moths that flit and flare | |
| Through the dark tapestry of night. The tall | |
| Black houses crush the creeping beggars down, | 5 |
| Who walk beneath and think of breezes cool, | |
| Of silver bodies bathing in a pool; | |
| Or trees that whisper in some far, small town | |
| Whose quiet nursed them, when they thought that | |
| Was merely metal, not a grave of mould | 10 |
| In which men bury all that's fine and fair. | |
| When they could chase the jewelled butterfly | |
| Through the green bracken-scented lanes or sigh | |
| For all the future held so rich and rare; | |
| When, though they knew it not, their baby cries | 15 |
| Were lovely as the jewelled butterflies. | |