By Meghan Merlino

I 

Before Dawn 

Time has no spectacle more stern and strange; 

Life has no sleep so dense as that which lies 

On walls and windows, blank as sightless eyes, 

On court and prison, warehouse and exchange. 

Earth has no silence such as fills the range 

Of streets left bare beneath the haughty skies: — 

Of unremembered human miseries 

Churned without purpose in the trough of change. 

For here where day by day the tide-race rolls 

Of sordid greed and passions mean and blind, 

Here is a vast necropolis of souls! 

And life, that waits as with suspended breath, 

Weary and still, here seems more dead than death, 

Aimless and empty as an idiot’s mind. 

II 

At Dawn 

Here is the dawn a hopeless thing to see: 

Sordid and pale as is the face of one 

Who sinks exhausted in oblivion 

After a night of deep debauchery. 

Here, as the light reveals relentlessly 

All that the soul has lost and greed has won, 

Scarce we believe that somewhere now the sun 

Dawns overseas in stainless majesty. 

Yet the day comes! — ghastly and harsh and thin 

Down the cold street; and now, from far away, 

We hear a vast and sullen rumor run, 

As of the tides of ocean turning in . . . 

And know, for yet another human day, 

The world’s dull, dreadful labor is begun!

George Cabot Lodge was a widely prominent figure in the 19th and 20th centuries. He came from a long line of U.S. senators, including his father, who he worked for as a secretary for quite some time. This social status led him to befriend other politicians, most importantly Theodore Roosevelt. Interestingly, they became close friends over time and T.R. wrote an introduction in the 1911 collection Poems and Dramas of George Cabot Lodge. 

The political environment involved a lot travel for Lodge and although he was raised in Massachusetts, him and his family frequented New York often. This probably influenced Lodge to write the poem “Lower New York”. The poem reveals how observant Lodge is, describing the  activity within the city. If you’ve ever been to New York City it is truly “the city that never sleeps”. I can attest to this. I grew up in New York, a city called Wappingers Falls which is a short 90 minutes from Manhattan- so I visited quite a bit. Part II of the poem supports this as it talks of the debauchery taken place well into the night, as well as work during the day. The poem makes me sad honestly. It feels grim as Lodge is talking about the rat race that is New York City. With a metropolis this big, so many individuals sell their souls to their jobs, and sometimes in careers such as stock broking and law, etc. you do dishonorable things to succeed at that job. People work and run themselves into the ground for money, which Lodge notes of when he mentions greed. But these lives a lot of the time end up being meaningless- to society and to the person. In order to be remembered in New York you have to work your butt off, and sometimes sacrifice love, family, and happiness. New York is one of the biggest culinary cities in the U.S. too, being one of the few cities that have Michelin restaurants, another industry that requires blood, sweat, and tears. 

“And life, that waits as with suspended breath, 

Weary and still, here seems more dead than death, 

Aimless and empty as an idiot’s mind.”

I think what Lodge is saying here is that these people forget what their real purpose in life is, drowning in long work days and big salaries, “the trough of change”. To make these days tolerable, they go out and party and do ungodly things, all to  make themselves more exhausted and do it all again. In part II, it would make sense that you don’t see the sun because the high-rises make it almost impossible but I think the sun here also represents happiness, which the city residents don’t have.  As someone who lived in New York for 24 years before moving to Charleston, I believe Lodge did a pretty phenomenal job at depicting Manhattan. Many people love it there, but as I said this poem makes me sad because it’s true- New York is a place for dreams to die more than it is for dreams to manifest in my opinion. It is way harder for events to transpire in one’s favor. With that said, I also have an appreciation for the souls that work their life away in order to pursue their dreams. It’s just a shame that it comes at such a large cost. 

Unfortunately, George Cabot Lodge died at the very young age of 35 due to heart failure. However, two out of three children continued on to be major politicians, and surround themselves with city life.