On This Day, 16 November 1916

Birmingham Gazette 175th Anniversary Supplement 

Thursday 16 November 1916

BIRMINGHAM – 1916

Once Athens worked and went to see the play.
And Thomas Atkins kissed the girls of Rome.
In council in Victoria Square to-day
Are grey-beard Nazarenes, with shop and home
And counting-houses and all the friendly cares
That Joseph knew: in Bull Ring markets meet
Gossips as once at Babylonian fairs,
And Helen walks in Corporation Street.

Now Troy is Home: and of Nazareth
Grave histories are of one love that was strong:
Athens is beauty: Rome an immortal death:
And Babylon in a song . . . .
Perplexed as ours these cities were of old:
And shall our name greatly as these be told?

JOHN DRINKWATER.