Show of hands, who has read Charles Dickens in their lives? Who in the last 30 years? Yet, he stands as perhaps the greatest novelist in the English language. It almost scares me to know that I had read five of his works by the seventh grade. I think I would be lucky to find five people who even know that the classics A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities was written by this giant. Yet, we wonder why civilization seems to be in trouble these days, right?
Given the Dickens I've Known by Michael Doyle On June 9, 2020, life in its severity Found Charles Dickens struck from life After decades of telling tales of clarity Of the hope of life and all of its strife Buried in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abby This novelist was the English epitome Of a literary master who stood by the poor Helping them to endure and hope for a bit more Blending adventure with sentimentality His every tale was one of industrial morality Having made his way up from society's lower reaches His were and are the words that fill the breaches Of society's contract for the classes The push through in their struggling masses Debt was cause enough for imprisonment then As Dickens would look back on childhood again Descriptive of the lawyers' misery And the squalor that suffered the century Little bits of darkened, hidden alley ways Were the common cause of Dickens' days (c) June 10, 2020 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
