A Manchester Poem (excerpt)

'Tis a poor drizzly morning, dark and sad.

The cloud has fallen, and filled with fold on fold

The chimneyed city ; and the smoke is caught,

And spreads diluted in the cloud, and sinks,

A black precipitate, on miry streets.

And faces gray glide through the darkened fog.

Slave engines utter again their ugly growl,

And soon the iron bands and blocks of stone

That prison them to their task, will strain and quiver

Until the city tremble. The clamour of bells,

Importunate, keeps calling pale-faced forms

To gather and feed those Samsons' groaning

strength With labour; and among the many come

A man and woman-the woman with her gown

Drawn over her head, the man with bended neck

Submissive to the rain.