Rise up! Rise up! thou blesséd knight!
And off thy bended knees!
Go forth and slay all folk who make
Us wait "One moment, please."
A Gotham Garden of Verses
I
In summer when the days are hot
The subway is delayed a lot;
In winter, quite the selfsame thing;
In autumn also, and in spring.
And does it not seem strange to you
That transportation is askew
In this—I pray, restrain your mirth!—
In this, the Greatest Town on Earth?
II
All night long and every night
The neighbours dance for my delight;
I hear the people dance and sing
Like practically anything.
Women and men and girls and boys,
All making curious kinds of noise
And dancing in so weird a way,
I never saw the like by day.
So loud a show was never heard
As that which yesternight occurred:
They danced and sang, as I have said,
As I lay wakeful on my bed.