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Byron Rufus Newton (1861-1938)
Owed to New York
Vulgar of manner, overfed,
Overdressed and underbred,
Heartless, Godless, hell's delight,
Rude by day and lewd by night;
Bedwarfed the man, o'ergrown the brute,
Ruled by boss and prostitute:
Purple-robed and pauper-clad,
Raving, rotting, money-mad;
A squirming herd in Mammon's mesh,
A wilderness of human flesh;
Crazed by avarice, lust and rum,
New York, thy name's "Delirium."
Cole's Quotable New York dates the above poem to 1906. It can be
found in its entirety in:
Woods, Ralph L., ed. A Second Treasury of the Familiar.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1955.
Felleman, Hazel, ed. The Best Loved Poems of the American People.
Garden City, NY: Garden City Books, 1936.
An excerpt is contained in:
Cole, William, ed. Quotable New York: A Literary Companion.
New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
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