Classic Poem

As near Blackfriars, " sad by fits. "
Macadam into dwarfish bits
Broke many a giant pebble,
Old Thames upraised his watery pate,
And sang the smooth contractor's fate
In this unwelcome treble: —

" Vainly you wield yon pounding axe;
All Bridewell with combined attacks
Shall mar your undertakings;
White Portland's sons around you pour
The reign of granite, to restore
And break up your upbreakings.

" Ah me! what ills each house beset,
From horse or foot, or dry or wet,
From chimney-top to basement!
The Albion mourns her sullied walls,
And Waithman veils his hundred shawls
Beneath a spattered casement!

" What wild pedestrians in a ring
Round Johnny Wilkes's column cling
To 'scape from oxen tossing!
Awhile they halt, then, sore afraid,
Dart different ways, and leave unpaid
The Black who sweeps the crossing.

" In vain you plead St. James's Square,
Grateful to dames, who carol there
Love-strains in measure Sapphic:
They well may like your coat of stone;
But, child of dust, reflect upon
The difference of " Traffic. "

" O'er your smooth convex, coach or car
Steal on the traveller, from afar,
As fleetly as the wind does!
Binding whole troops to Charon's keel,
As Juggernaut with rolling wheel
Depopulates the Hindoos.

" Eyes should be sharp, for mortal ears
Serve not to shun the car that steers
O'er your insidious surface:
Lo! while I sing, yon heedless hack
Has poled a deaf old woman's back,
And thrown her down on her face.

" But oh! when droves of sheep and pigs
With countless stockbrokers in gigs
Are mix'd — can aught be minded?
Can mortal sight be free to choose,
Or bunged up by your sable ooze,
Or by your white dust blinded?

" Ne'er did my refluent billows kiss
So traitorous a shore as this!
'Tis sad beyond endurance,
Such woful accidents to meet,
And see Death not in a street
Surcharged with Life Assurance.

" Soon from my stream the two Lord Mayors
Debarking at Blackfriars'-stairs,
Shall notice your behaviour:
In their huge Brobdignag will they
Not grumble to behold you play
The Lilliputian paviour?

" Go then, Colossus, stick to roads,
But metropolitan abodes
Leave by your pick-axe undone;
Go delve in some less stubborn soil,
You'll find it an Utopian toil
To mend the ways of London. "