ed in an environment of constant change and urban growth in the midst of the formation of a new country. His intent in writing his poetry was to draw attention to the temporary nature of the City, and its impermanence and unreliability. Second, how did he leave his message imprinted in his readers' minds with a lasting effect? Using diction and selecting short and powerful terms, Lampman creates meaning within the text as a whole, instead of drawing attention to the significance of specific words, or descriptions. Also, employing onomatopoeia, the poet involves the reader in the sensory perceptions of the "city of the end of things", such as sound or sight.
             In "The City of the End of Things", Lampman looks at the advantages and disadvantages of each type of physical environment (city vs. country) and ultimately leans towards touting the goodness of the natural landscape as opposed to the man-made one. Why did he feel this way and what was he hoping to achieve by writing about it?
             It would be easy to say that Lampman was simply trying to say to people that living in a big urban metropolis is bad, unhealthy, wrong, selfish and sheltered. However, his thesis was not that simple. Rather than preaching haughtily to his audience about how bad the city is, and reducing this age-old argument to a black-and-white, good vs. evil cartoonish depiction of urban sprawl, Lampman simply seeks to point out the transitoriness of man-made landscapes as opposed to the permanence of natural ones.
             "The fires shall moulder out and die, the roar shall vanish at its height," (Lampman, lines 72-73) is found near the end of the poem, in the midst of the description of the ultimate fall of the great metropolitan empire. All physical constructions that were previously described in the poem, such as "roofs and iron towers" (l. 9) and "murky streets" (l. 11) are temporary. It is an absolute guarantee th...