Tag: Stories

I bid thee learn, children of tender age,

Facts solely be your guide on learning’s stage.

Dismiss ye tales spun out of whimsy’s loom,

Cast off soft notions; let the stern facts bloom.

Young miss, I call on thee, define a horse,

And let thy answer have its proper course.

Oh, sir, I… I…

Thou hesitate, dear child,

Is it that fact and fancy are reviled?

Speak up, I say, and answer as you ought.

Now, boy, I ask thee, tell me in short,

What is a horse? Speak true, distort thou not.

A horse, sir, is a beast that doth mankind aid,

In labour, travel, and many a trade.

Ah! True and fit, a fact without pretence,

This is the spirit of our learning’s sense.

In this hard world of smoke and toil and grime,

Where facts are sacred, fancy is a crime,

Thus starts our tale, as you’ve rightly seen,

In Coketown, veiled in soot and harsh regime.

Faces, faces everywhere,

But not you,

Not you, anywhere.

No touch of you,

No beautiful you;

Only me and the dark,

Haunted by echoes

Of a once beating heart.

Condemned to yearn,

But dead to you;

A figure in the corners,

Behind shadows,

Floating out of reach.

We pray under crosses, owned by Man

And grovel to bosses, slaves to a plan;

Trapped in a web, of their endless lies,

To be spun from a thread, and eaten like flies.