The Suburbs
The Suburbs
Original Text
Humbert Wolfe, London Sonnets (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1920): 17. SRLF_UCR:LAGE-4346129 Internet Archive
1Because they are so many and the same,
2The little houses row on weary row;
3Because they are so loveless and so lame
4It were a bitter thing to tell them so.
5And ill to laugh at those who hither came
6Not without hope and not without a glow,
7And who, perchance, by sorrow struck or shame
8Not without tears look back before they go.
9Here is no place for laughter nor for blame,
10And not for tears, since none shall ever know
11What here is done and suffered, nor proclaim
12The end to which these myriad spirits grow.
13He understands, whose heart remembereth
14That here is all the tale of life and death.
Publication Start Year
1920
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form