She left in the morning with just a burlap sack She sat upon the bus with the sack upon her lap She marvelled at the travellers who all looked very sad And in the service-stop the salesmen, they all seemed very sad And the teller and the feller selling coffee, they seemed sad And she prayed that the city was exempt from all this sad
But when she arrived in the city not far after five All the faces seemed blurred And only half-way alive So she sat by a statue, tried to pin down the picture But her eyes weren’t adjusted, and her brain wouldn’t let her And a man shouted at her And another tried to tempt her And she slept in a doorway till a cop came and kicked her
So she walked by the river where a man tried to trick her… And as the drunks staggered homeward and the jackals closed their eyes She began to see the city as the sun began to rise And in the shadows of the shards and the black brick buildings The steeples and the courtyards had their moment of revealing:
Amidst the sky-scape of Hawksmoor and the mind-scape of Blake A landscape of Albion was summoned in its wake And the God within the River raised his head to shake his hair And the ancient stone of London sent a signal to her there And the head of Bryn ascended from a mound near Tower Hill Whilst the Southwark geese all danced to a mighty jig and reel She heard the echoes of the anarchy of ancient London fayre’s Where the rich never lingered, and the power never dared She glimpsed the ghost of Jack Sheppard upon the rooftops of the Squares And Leno’s crazy clog-dance whipped a whirlwind in the air
All the heroes of the city filled her aching soul with light As she pulled her knees to her chest and curled her aching body tight Cocooned now in sleep, the revelries all ended And she dreamt the city back to life, as the worker-ants descended And each and every day thereon she would dream as they descended
Now she sees beyond the blurs and the slate-grey etched-in faces She sleeps amidst the majesty of all the hidden holy places She lies outside the fear and lies; the ruckus; riot; and squall Some say she’s an incarnation of the Holy Hermit in the wall. But maybe she’s a frequency – outside of space and time And the spirit of the City, within her now resides
And though the Peace of the city is killed by screaming cars And the Light of the city extinguishes the stars And the Heart of the city is banished to the edges And the Beat of the city is traded by the hedgers The Soul of the city is safe within her hold So pray tonight she’s wrapped up tight against the biting cold.
-And bless her when you see her and thank her for her dreams For the dreams she weaves are miracles and we are products of those dreams
So bless her If you see her And maybe, you could feed her For though the city is her lifeblood It often fails to feed her And if the city shall not feed her, and if she fails to dream Well – can you truly visualise a world devoid of dreams?
-Can any of us visualise - a world devoid of dreams?