Saint Paul's from Ludgate Hill

Dawn ebbs, half-light recedes, and only the faintest trace of night
lingers in the cold side alleys that reach from the yawning street.
Soft City daylight replaces slumber, the metallic rattle of the opening
shop fronts sign in the untouched day like an alarm bell. This is
Ludgate Hill viewed through the concrete corona of the closing
streetlamps that jewel the tired pavements. Through the composed
celestial daybreak, dozey pigeon coos rise from this enchanted vista;
sweet cathedral canticles of a deserted Saint Paul's delivered to the
sky.

Clouds cascade in crazy blue prayers, shrouding the roads like
providence aloof. A tarmac God who calls the fleet of night angels home
turns his cloaked back on the few wanderers who have begun to tread the
pavement . Mouths heavy in coffee laced doldrums, sunk in the solitude
of the quiet hour, they walk past the shuttered husk of a pub, whose
floral tributes line the roads for unseen mourners. The funeral
procession passed peacefully with the weekday tide upon which empty
kegs of grief clatters on their outbound ceremonial journey, hoisted
from a cellar on the shoulders of past pilgrims, just a vestige of
yesterday's cheers.

Abandonment envelops this forsaken environ. Desperate quietude haunting
the fantasia hour with a mysterious longing. The cathedral, crusted in
grime, stands a paragon. So many relic services drew inspiration
from the dust? How can such great wealth make its home, I wonder, in
such poverty ?