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49
A NIGHTMARE OF LONDON
I dreamed a dream, perhaps a prophecy!That London over England spread herself;
Swallowed the green field and the waving plain,
Till all this island grew one hideous town.
And as I gazed in terror rooted, so
The City seemed to take a dreadful life,
To be a monster that desired and felt;
And still did she perceptibly advance,
Blacken and grasp and seize and wither up.
Northward she spread, and did assimilate
Her sister cities of the loom and wheel
That welcomed her with whirring ecstasies;
She made the sky a pall, and as she moved,
Blighted the breathing forests and the woods,
And where the flower grew, now her pavement lay.
And all the air grew dark, and there was heard,
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Only the hoot of griding car, the shriek
And fiery belch of engines to the cloud.
A human army from before her fled;
But swollen, spiderish, without shape or sleep,
She stole, till now opposed her but the sea;
Ocean preserved his sanctity of foam.
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