No more through prayerful gardens glide the
Frome;
The steam-gods, perched upon their pillars high,
Patch with their breath the weary, worn-out sky;
Hill sides are white with smoke, not apple-bloom;
A red sun glares through the perpetual gloom;
Men stay not now to ask who passes by;
From the vexed Avon ever comes the cry
Of anxious steamers, questioning – “Is there
room?”
The white sails mix, and move from street to
street;
The quays are coloured with the dust of ware;
Whole nations at the landing-places meet;
And foreign cargoes perfume all the air:
Only at night men hear the loud clocks’ beat!
Only at night men feel that God is there!
(A Book of Bristol Sonnets, p. 1.)