Sonnet Written by Christopher Fry - TrustNews Spring 1988
Sonnet Written by Christopher Fry for the Chichester Society and spoken by Irene Worth at the Town Meeting in Chichester Cathedral on Monday June 17th 1974
What can be said of the spoiler of cities? –
The perpetrator of a thousand pities,
Who, like the drunken surgeon with a knife,
Thinking to cure, cuts out the life
Who banishes, with gesture brief and graphic,
Whatever charm disturbs the flow of traffic –
Whose lips compress, whose cardiac centre hardens
To see a city's heart alight with hidden gardens?
What can be said of him who sees no stature
In the uniqueness of a city's nature?
'Alas' is easily said; but no sigh pays the cost
Of dignity destroyed and beauty lost.
And nothing then can reinstate
A city that we cared about too late.