 | A Sonnet Chronicle |  |
55
Bradford, Then and Now
The city wakes; ten thousand busy feet
Sound, and I hear the piping treble cries
Of boys who sell what news the day supplies;
Gongs clang, with iron hooves the horses beat
Time to the rhythmic thunder of the street,
While high o'erhead, calm-voiced and stately-wise,
The clocks tell forth how swift the Time-god flies
To spur dull labour to its fiercest heat.
Sound, and I hear the piping treble cries
Of boys who sell what news the day supplies;
Gongs clang, with iron hooves the horses beat
Time to the rhythmic thunder of the street,
While high o'erhead, calm-voiced and stately-wise,
The clocks tell forth how swift the Time-god flies
To spur dull labour to its fiercest heat.
To-day a wider empire Bradford wields,
Its barns are bursting with a fuller store,
Yet must I think if all its labour yields
Such joy of heart to quicken at the core,
As when Aire gleamed through those fair-sloping fields
My father's far forefathers tilled of yore.
Its barns are bursting with a fuller store,
Yet must I think if all its labour yields
Such joy of heart to quicken at the core,
As when Aire gleamed through those fair-sloping fields
My father's far forefathers tilled of yore.
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