At The West India Docks Poem Rhyme Scheme

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A Memory of August	A
	-
I STOOD in the ghastly gleaming night by the swollen sullen flow	B
Of the dreadful river that rolls her tides through the City of Wealth and	C
Woe	B
And mine eyes were heavy with sleepless hours and dry with desperate	D
grief	E
And my brain was throbbing and aching and mine anguish had no relief	E
For never a moment no not one through all the dreary day	F
And thro' all the weary night forlorn would the pitiless pulses stay	F
Of the thundering great Machinery that such insistence had	G
As it crushed out human hearts and souls that it slowly drove me mad	G
And there in the dank and foetid mist as I silent and tearless stood	H
And the river's exhalations sweating forth their muddy blood	I
Breathed full on my face and poisoned me like the slow putrescent	I
drain	J
That carries away from the shambles the refuse of flesh and brain	J
There rose up slowly before me in the dome of the city's light	I
A vast and shadowy Substance with shafts and wheels of might	I
Tremendous ruthless fatal and I knew the visible shape	K
Of that thundering great Machinery from which there was no escape	K
It stood there high in the heavens fronting the face of God	I
And the spray it sprinkled had blasted the green and flowery sod	I
All round where through stony precincts its Cyclopean pillars fell	L
To its adamantine foundations that were fixed in the womb of hell	L
And the birds that wild and whirling and moth like flew to its glare	M
Were struck by the flying wheel spokes and maimed and murdered	I
there	M
And the dust that swept about its black panoply overhead	I
And the din of it seemed to shatter and scatter the sheeted dead	I
But mine eyes were fixed on the people that sought this horrible den	N
And they mounted in thronged battalions children and women and men	N
Right out from the low horizon more far than eye could see	O
From the north and the south and the east and the west they came	P
perpetually	O
Some silent some raving some sobbing some laughing some cursing	Q
some crying	Q
Some alone some with others some struggling some dragging the dead	I
and the dying	Q
Up to the central Wheel enormous with its wild devouring breath	R
That winnowed the livid smoke clouds and the sickening fume of death	R
Then suddenly as I watched it all a keen wind blew amain	N
And the air grew clearer and purer and I could see it plain	N
How under the central Wheel a black stone Altar stood	I
And a great gold Idol upon it was gleaming like fiery blood	I
And there in front of the Altar was a huge round lurid Pit	I
And the thronged battalions were marching to the yawning mouth of it	I
In the clangour of the Machinery and the Wheel's devouring breath	R
That winnowed the livid smoke clouds and the sickening fume of death	R
And once again as I gazed there and the keen wind still blew on	N
I saw the shape of the Idol like a Queen turned carrion	N
Yet crowned and more terrific thus for her human fleshly loss	S
And with one clenched hand she brandished a lash and the other held up	T
a cross	S
And all around the Altar were seated joyous and free	O
In garments richly coloured and choice a goodly company	O
Eating and drinking and wantoning like gods that scorned to know	N
Of the thundering great Machinery and the crowds and the Pit below	N
Ah Christ the sights and the sounds there that every hour befell	L
Would wring the heart of the devils spinning ropes of sand in hell	L
But not the insolent Revellers in their old lascivious ease	U
Children hollow eyed starving consumed alive with disease	U
Boys and men tortured to fiends and branded with shuddering fire	V
Women and girls shrieking caught and whored and trampled to death in	N
the mire	W
Babyhood youth and manhood and womanhood that might have been	N
Kneaded a bloody pulp to feed the gold grinding murderous Machine	N
And still with aching eyeballs I stared at that hateful sight	I
At the long dense lines of the people and the shafts and wheels of might	I
When slowly slowly emerging I saw a great Globe rise	X
Blood red on the dim horizon and it swam up into the skies	X
But whether indeed it were the sun or the moon I could not say	F
For I knew not now in my watching if it were night or day	F
But when that great Globe steadied above the central Wheel	Y
The thronged battalions wavered and paused and an awful silence fell	L
Then I know not how but so it was in a moment the flash of an eye	Z
A murmur ran and rose to a voice and the voice to a terrible cry	Z
'Enough enough It has had enough We will march no more till we	O
drop	A2
In the furnace Pit Give us food Give us rest Though the accursed	F
Machinery stop '	-
And then with a shout of angry fear the Revellers sprang to their feet	F
And the call was for cannon and cavalry for rifle and bayonet	F
And One rose up a leader of them lifting a threatening rod	F
And 'Stop the Machinery ' he yelled 'you might as well stop God '	-
But the terrible thunder cry replied 'If this indeed must be	O
It is you should be cast to the furnace Pit to feed the Machine not	F
we '	-
And the central wheel enormous slowed down in groaning plight	F
And all the a rial movement ceased of the shafts and wheels of might	F
And a superhuman clamour leaped madly to where overhead	F
The great Globe swung in the gathering gloom portentous huge bloodred	F
But my brain whirled round and my blinded eyes no more could see or	B2
know	N
Till I struggling seemed to awake at last by the swollen sullen flow	N
Of the dreadful river that rolls her tides through the City of Wealth and	F
Woe	N

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

At The West India Docks Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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