The City Streets Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EEFFGGDD HHIIIIDD JJKKLL MMNNDD IIIIOO PQRR IIII IISS TTDDKKDDII UUIIDDLLDD| A CITY of Palaces Yes that's true a city of palaces built for trade | A |
| Look down this street what a splendid view of the temples where fabulous gains are made | A |
| Just glance at the wealth of a single pile the marble pillars the miles of glass | B |
| The carving and cornice in gaudy style the massive show of the polished brass | B |
| And think of the acres of inner floors where the wealth of the world is spread for sale | C |
| Why the treasures inclosed by those ponderous doors are richer than ever a fairy tale | C |
| Pass on the next it is still the same another Aladdin the scene repeats | D |
| The silks are unrolled and the jewels flame for leagues and leagues of the city streets | D |
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| Now turn away from the teeming town and pass to the homes of the merchant kings | E |
| Wide squares where the stately porches frown where the flowers are bright and the fountain sings | E |
| Look up at the lights in that brilliant room with its chandelier of a hundred flames | F |
| See the carpeted street where the ladies come whose husbands have millions or famous names | F |
| For whom are the jewels and silks behold on those exquisite bosoms and throats they burn | G |
| Art challenges Nature in color and gold and the gracious presence of every turn | G |
| So the winters fly past in a joyous rout and the summers bring marvelous cool retreats | D |
| These are civilized wonders we're finding out as we walk through the beautiful city streets | D |
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| A City of Palaces Hush not quite a city where palaces are is best | H |
| No need to speak of what's out of sight let us take what is pleasant and leave the rest | H |
| The men of the city who travel and write whose fame and credit are known abroad | I |
| The people who move in the ranks polite the cultured women whom all applaud | I |
| It is true there are only ten thousand here but the other half million are vulgar clod | I |
| And a soul well bred is eternally dear it counts so much more on the books of God | I |
| The others have use in their place no doubt but why speak of a class one never meets | D |
| They are gloomy things to be talked about those common lives of the city streets | D |
| - | |
| Well then if you will let us look at both let us weigh the pleasure against the pain | J |
| The gentleman's smile with the bar room oath the luminous square with the tenement lane | J |
| Look round you now 'tis another sphere of thin clad women and grimy men | K |
| There are over ten thousand huddled here where a hundred would live of our upper ten | K |
| Take care of that child here look at her face a baby who carries a baby brother | L |
| They are early helpers in this poor plane and the infant must often nurse the mother | L |
| - | |
| Come up those stairs where the little ones went five flights they groped and climbed in the dark | M |
| There are dozens of homes on the steep ascent and homes that are filled with children hark | M |
| Did you hear that laugh with its manly tones and the joyous ring of the baby voice | N |
| 'Tis the father who gathers his little ones the nurse and her brother and all rejoice | N |
| Yes human nature is much the same when you come to the heart and count its beats | D |
| The workman is proud of his home's dear name as the richest man on the city streets | D |
| - | |
| God pity them all God pity the worst for the worst are reckless and need it most | I |
| When we trace the causes why lives are curst with the criminal taint let no man boast | I |
| The race is not run with an equal chance the poor man's son carries double weight | I |
| Who have not are tempted inheritance is a blight or a blessing of man's estate | I |
| No matter that poor men sometimes sweep the prize from the sons of the millionaire | O |
| What is good to win must be good to keep else the virtue dies on the topmost stair | O |
| - | |
| When the winners can keep their golden prize still darker the day of the laboring poor | P |
| The strong and the selfish are sure to rise while the simple and generous die obscure | Q |
| And these are the virtues and social gifts by which Progress and Property rank over Man | R |
| Look there O woe where a lost soul drifts on the stream where such virtues overran | R |
| - | |
| Stand close let her pass from a tenement room and a reeking workshop graduate | I |
| If a man were to break the iron loom or the press she tended he knows his fate | I |
| But her life may be broken she stands alone her poverty stings and her guideless feet | I |
| Not long since kissed as a father's own are dragged in the mire of the pitiless street | I |
| - | |
| Come back to the light for my brain goes wrong when I see the sorrows that can't be cured | I |
| If this is all righteous then why prolong the pain for a thing that must be endured | I |
| We can never have palaces built without slaves nor luxuries served without ill paid toil | S |
| Society flourishes only on graves the moral graves in the lowly soil | S |
| - | |
| The earth was not made for its people that cry has been hounded down as a social crime | T |
| The meaning of life is to barter and buy and the strongest and shrewdest are masters of time | T |
| God made the million to serve the few and their questions of right are vain conceits | D |
| To have one sweet home that is safe and true ten garrets must reek in the darkened streets | D |
| 'Tis Civilization so they say and it cannot be changed for the weakness of men | K |
| Take care take care 'tis a desperate way to goad the wolf to the end of his den | K |
| Take heed of your Civilization ye on your pyramids built of quivering hearts | D |
| There are stages like Paris in ' where the commonest men play most terrible parts | D |
| Your statutes may crush but they cannot kill the patient sense of a natural right | I |
| It may slowly move but the People's will like the ocean o'er Holland is always in sight | I |
| - | |
| 'It is not our fault ' say the rich ones No 'tis the fault of a system old and strong | U |
| But men are the makers of systems so the cure will come if we own the wrong | U |
| It will come in peace if the man right lead it will sweep in storm if it be denied | I |
| The law to bring justice is always decreed and on every hand are the warnings cried | I |
| Take heed of your Progress Its feet have trod on the souls it slew with its own pollutions | D |
| Submission is good but the order of God may flame the torch of the revolutions | D |
| Beware with your Classes Men are men and a cry in the night is a fearful teacher | L |
| When it reaches the hearts of the masses then they need but a sword for a judge and preacher | L |
| Take heed for your Juggernaut pushes hard God holds the doom that its day completes | D |
| It will dawn like a fire when the track is barred by a barricade in the city streets | D |
John Boyle O'reilly
(1)
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