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What is my court? These cellars piled
With filth of many a year
These rooms with rotting damps defiled;
These alleys where the sun ne'er smiled,
Darkling and drear!
These streets along the river's bank,
Below the rise of tide;
These hovels, set in stifling rank,
Sapp'd by the earth-damps green and dank;
These cesspools wide.
These yards, whose heaps of dust and bone
Breathe poison all around;
These sties, whose swinish tenants, grown
Half human, with their masters own
A common ground.
What are my perfumes?Stink and stench
From slaughter-house and sewer;
The oozing gas from open'd trench,
The effluvia of the pools that drench
Courtyards impure.
- George Godwin, Town Swamps and Social Bridges, 1859 |
