Pewter Platter Alley
Philip Freneau
In Philadelphia
(As it appeared in January, 1784)
From Christ-Church graves, across the way,
A dismal, horrid place is found, Where rushing winds exert their sway,
And Greenland winter chills the ground:
No blossoms there are seen to bloom,
No sun pervades the dreary gloom!
The people of that gloomy place
In penance for some ancient crime
Are held in a too narrow space,
Like those beyond the bounds of time,
Who darkened still, perceive no day,
While seasons waste, and moons decay.
Cold as the shade that wraps them round,
This icy region prompts our fear;
And he who treads this frozen ground
Shall curse the chance that brought him here—
The slippery mass predicts his fate,
A broken arm, a wounded pate.
When August sheds his sultry beam,
May Celia never find this place,
Nor see, upon the clouded stream,
The fading summer in her face;
And may she ne'er discover there
The grey that mingles with her hair.
The watchman sad, whose drowsy call
Proclaims the hour forever fled,
Avoids this path to Pluto's hall;
For who would wish to wake the dead!—
Still let them sleep—it is no crime—
They pay no tax to know the time.
No coaches here, in glittering pride,
Convey their freight to take the air,
No gods nor heroes here reside,
Nor powdered beau, nor lady fair—
All, all to warmer regions flee,
And leave the glooms to Towne and me.
Pewter Platter Alley in Philadelphia was named after a bar on the corner which had a pewter plate as a sign. It is now part of Church Street.
