Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. SUNDAY MORNING NEAR A MANUFACTURING TOWN, by EDWARD CARPENTER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. SUNDAY MORNING NEAR A MANUFACTURING TOWN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sunday, a still autumn morning, and all the roads on the outskirts
Last Line: Overlie you much longer.
Subject(s): Environment; Factories; Smoke; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation


SUNDAY, a still autumn morning, and all the roads on the outskirts are
throng with people.
Where the streets begin to run wild towards the country, with patch-work of
garden-allotments, and occasional hedgerows and overhanging trees, they go—

Pale-faced men and girls hardly escaped for an hour or two from breathing
the eternal smoke.

The sun shines softly—it is very pleasant.
Here comes a whole family: the mother holds a baby to her breast, the
father carries the little boy on his arm—two other children play around
them;
There go two factory girls, with faded shawls thrown over their
heads—their arms round each other's necks; both have clear soft eyes, and
both have fawn-colored opaque skins, marked with the small-pox;
Here shambling along in the opposite direction a group of ill-made boys,
carrying dinner-kerchiefs crammed and purple-stained with blackberries. They
have been out early and are returning.
Most of the men stand about in knots on the road or in their gardens, some
smoking—some with fox-terriers and coursing-dogs.
Handsomely stand the yellow and the lilac dahlias on their tall stalks; and
the marigolds and other flowers look well amid the green. The air is full of the
scent of celery.
Some are banking up their celery-beds, some are getting potatos, others lie
on their backs enjoying the lazy air, others are gathering flowers.
Here comes one with a nosegay of all sorts, here another with a great
armful of dahlias nodding amid their leaves as he walks, here another with
quantities of brown and yellow calceolaria—almost every one has a flower of
some sort.
There is plenty of chaff as the groups of young mechanics pass the groups
of chatting laughing girls—some go apart arm in arm together.
Withal the wan look of many faces there is I know not what sense of
naturalness and wholesome feeling abroad to-day (the stuffy people are safe out
of the way in church)—
The air is full of voices and laughter; from some of the neighboring
cottages come sounds of music.

It is well. I welcome you, O crisp uprising life!
I welcome you, O crisp green shoot which the still bright morning has
called forth!
It does not need much to see how deep your roots are fed in the strong soil
of necessity;
Not much to see how native and fresh a life you indicate,
And that the limp decaying leaves and dead things of the earth will not
overlie you much longer.





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