I saw an eyeless face on the lampless
street where the blindmen tread
with purposeless less feet The City was of Night
The City was of Dark
I watched the pilgrims trudge round
the faithless route snatching with mechanic hands
at the seedless fruit The City was of Night
The City was of Dark
I saw a preacher raise an empty
cup mourn a deceased messiah
till the sea rose up The City was of Night
But not of Sleep
"Dark, Dark, Dark Brother!" Rejoice brother.
Sing brother. Freedom brother, grope for it,
flounder, reach out in the dark for it. The City was of Night
The City was of Dark
O melencolia that you would move!
Rouse your repundant wings, blink your lifeless eyes
Patron Saint of lethargy,
apathy
dreadful embodiment of your faithless
city.
move.
"Where Faith and Love and Hope are dead indeed, / Can Life still live? / By what doth it proceed?" (James Thomson 'The City of Dreadful Night)
I am writing an essay on James Thomson's 'The City of Dreadful Night' just now... (which is far from a laugh-a-minute-kinda-poem (very far from)), it has long been regarded as the most impressive utterance of despair in Western Literature. Thomson was staunch atheist (writing at the time when Darwin's theories had pronounced man to be alone in the universe without an author) therefore, his city is godless, purposeless, hopeless and loveless. I wrote this wee poem I guess in frustration with the completely dreadful view of existence that his poem asserts. Like Bunyan and Dante, Thomson's protagonist is a pilgrim, yet his world is godless so his pilgrimage is purposeless; the holy shrines to which he treads only mark the graves of dead hope, dead love and dead faith. By severing God from His universe man has simply conditioned his feet to aimlessly tread on a destinationless circuit, never looking up to see the boundless beauty, love and wonder of God. The true liberator.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
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