Metropolitan Nightmare Poem Rhyme Scheme

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I rained quite a lot that spring You woke in the morning	A
And saw the sky still clouded the streets still wet	B
But nobody noticed so much except the taxis	C
And the people who parade You don't in a city	D
The parks got very green All the trees were green	E
Far into July and August heavy with leaf	F
Heavy with leaf and the long roots were boring and spreading	A
But nobody noticed that but the city gardeners	G
And they didn't talk	H
	-
Oh on Sundays perhaps you'd notice	I
Walking through certain blocks by the shut proud houses	J
With the windows boarded the people gone away	K
You'd suddenly see the queerest small shoots of green	E
Poking through cracks and crevices in the stone	L
And a bird sown flower red on the balcony	D
But then you made jokes about grass growing in the streets	M
And politics and grass roots and there were songs	N
And gags and a musical show called 'Hot and Wet '	-
It all made a good box for the papers When the flamingo	O
Flew into a meeting of the Board of Estimate	P
The new Mayor acted at once and called the photographers	G
When the first green creeper crawled over the Brooklyn Bridge	Q
They thought it was ornamental They let it stay	K
	-
There was the year the termites came to New York	R
And they don't do well in cold climates but listen Joe	O
They're only ants and ants are nothing but insects	S
It was funny and yet rather wistful in a way	K
As Heywood Broun pointed out in the	T
World Telegram	U
	-
To think of them looking for wood in a steel city	D
It made you feel about life It was too divine	V
There were funny pictures by all the smart funny artists	W
And Macy's ran a terribly clever ad	X
'The Widow's Termite' or something	A
	-
There was no	O
Disturbance Even the Communists didn't protest	Y
And say they were Morgan hirelings It was too hot	Z
Too hot to protest too hot to get excited	A2
An even African heat lush fertile and steamy	D
That soaked into bones and mind and never once broke	B2
The warm rain fell in fierce showers and ceased and fell	C2
Pretty soon you got used to its always being that way	K
	-
You got used to the changed rhythm the altered beat	D2
To people walking slower to the whole bright	E2
Fierce pulse of the city slowing to men in shorts	F2
To the new sun helmets from Best's and the cops' white uniforms	G2
And the long noon rest in the offices everywhere	H2
It wasn't a plan or anything It just happened	I2
The fingers tapped the keys slower the office boys	J2
Dozed on their benches the bookkeeper yawned at his desk	K2
The A T T was the first to change the shifts	L2
And establish a siesta room	M2
But they were always efficient Mostly it just	N2
Happened like sleep itself like a tropic sleep	O2
Till even the Thirties were deserted at noon	P2
Except for a few tourists and one damned cop	Q2
They ran boats to see the big lilies on the North River	R2
But it was only the tourists who really noticed	N2
The flocks of rose and green parrots and parrakeets	L2
Nesting in the stone crannies of the Cathedral	S2
The rest of us had forgotten when they first came	T2
	-
There wasn't any real change it was just a heat spell	C2
A rain spell a funny summer a weather man's joke	B2
In spite of the geraniums three feet high	U2
In the tin can gardens of Hester and Desbrosses	L2
New York was New York It couldn't turn inside out	V2
When they got the news from Woods Hole about the Gulf Stream	W2
The	T
Times	L2
ran an adequate story	D
But nobody reads those stories but science cranks	L2
	-
Until one day a somnolent city editor	R2
Gave a new cub the termite yarn to break his teeth on	X2
The cub was just down from Vermont so he took the time	Y2
He was serious about it He went around	Z2
He read all about termites in the Public Library	D
And it made him sore when they fired him	A3
	-
So one evening	A
Talking with an old watchman beside the first	B3
Raw girders of the new Planetopolis Building	A
Ten thousand brine cooled offices each with shower	R2
He saw a dark line creeping across the rubble	S2
And turned a flashlight on it	C3
	-
'Say buddy ' he said	D3
'You'd better look out for those ants They eat wood you know	O
They'll have your shack down in no time '	-
	-
The watchman spat	E3
'Oh they've quit eating wood ' he said in a casual voice	L2
'I thought everyone knew that '	-
	-
and reaching down	F3
He pried from the insect's jaw the bright crumb of steel	G3

Stephen Vincent Benet

Metropolitan Nightmare Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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