London, by Joanna Baillie
(From Ode to London : poems to celebrate the city. London : Batsford, 2012.)
It is a goodly sight through the clear air,
From Hampstead's heathy height, to see at once
England's vast capital in fair expanse,
Towers, belfries, lengthened streets and structures fair.
St. Paul's high dome amidst the vassal bands
Of neighb'ring spires, a regal chieftain stands,
And over fields of ridgy roofs appear,
With distance softly tinted, side by side,
In kindred grace, like twain of sisters dear,
The Towers of Westminster, her Abbey's pride;
While, far beyond, the hills of Surrey shine
Through thin soft haze, and shew their wavy line.
View'd thus, a goodly sight! but when survey'd
Through denser air when moisten'd winds prevail,
In her grand panoply of smoke arrayed,
While clouds aloft in heavy volumes sail,
She is sublime.--She seems a curtained gloom
Connecting heaven and earth,--a threat'ning sign of doom.
With more than natural height, reared in the sky
'Tis then St. Paul's arrests the wondering eye;
The lower parts in swathing mist concealed,
The higher through some half-spent shower revealed,
So far from earth removed, that well, I trow,
Did not its form man's artful structure show,
It might some lofty alpine peak be deemed,
The eagle's haunt with cave and crevice seamed.
Stretched wide on either hand, a rugged screen,
In lurid dimness, nearer streets are seen
Like shoreward billows of a troubled main,
Arrested in their rage. Through drizzly rain,
Cataracts of tawny sheen pour from the skies,
Of furnace smoke black curling columns rise,
And many-tinted vapours, slowly pass
O'er the wide draping of that pictured mass.
So shows by day this grand imperial town,
And, when o'er all the night's black stole is thrown,
The distant traveller doth with wonder mark
Her luminous canopy athwart the dark,
Cast up, from myriads of lamps that shine
Along her streets in many a starry line:--
He wondering looks from his yet distant road,
And thinks the northern streamers are abroad.
'What hollow sound is that?' approaching near,
The roar of many wheels breaks on his ear.
It is the flood of human life in motion!
It is the voice of a tempestuous ocean!
With sad but pleasing awe his soul is filled,
Scarce heaves his breast, and all within is stilled,
As many thoughts and feelings cross his mind,--
Thoughts, mingled, melancholy, undefined,
Of restless, reckless man, and years gone by,
And Time fast wending to Eternity.
[Poeten och dramatikern Joanna Baillie (1762-1851) växte upp på landsbygden i Skottland och tillbringade en stor del av sitt vuxna liv i Hampstead, strax utanför London. Hennes lyriska dikter tar ofta formen av meditation kring teman om naturen och ungdomstid. Källa: Poetry Foundation]
***
Wilfred Owen, född 18 mars 1893 i Oswestry i Shropshire, död 4 november 1918 vid Sambre-Oise-kanalen i Frankrike, var en brittisk poet, känd för de dikter han skrev under sin tid i den brittiska armén under första världskriget. Källa: Wikipedia
Men följande betraktelse handlar om Shadwell Stair. Shadwell är en del av East London, cirka 5 km öster om Charing Cross.
Shadwell Stair, by Wilfred Owen
(From Ode to London : poems to celebrate the city. London : Batsford, 2012.)
I am the ghost of Shadwell Stair.
Along the wharves by the water-house,
And through the cavernous slaughter-house,
I am the shadow that walks there.
Yet I have flesh both firm and cool,
And eyes tumultuous as the gems
Of moons and lamps in the lapping Thames
When dusk sails wavering down the pool.
Shuddering the purple street-arc burns
Where I watch always; from the banks
Dolorously the shipping clanks
And after me a strange tide turns.
I walk till the stars of London wane
And dawn creeps up the Shadwell Stair.
But when the growing syrens blare
I with another ghost am lain.
***
Självklart måste Londondimman få sin egen hyllningstext. Den är författad av Laurence Binyon (1869-1943). Han var en engelsk poet, dramatiker och konstlärd. Hans mest kända verk, "For the Fallen" har blivit känt genom att det användas i Remembrance Sunday services.
Fog, by Robert Laurence Binyon
(From Ode to London : poems to celebrate the city. London : Batsford, 2012.)
Magically awakened to a strange, brown night
The streets lie cold. A hush of heavy gloom
Dulls the noise of the wheels to a murmur dead:
Near and sudden the passing figures loom;
And out of darkness steep on startled sight
The topless walls in apparition emerge.
Nothing revealing but their own thin flames,
The rayless lamps burn faint and bleared and red:
Link-boys' cries, and the shuffle of horses led,
Pierce the thick air; and like a distant dirge,
Melancholy horns wail from the shrouded Thames.
Long the blind morning hooded the dumb town;
Till lo! in an instant winds arose, and the air
Lifted: at once, from a cold and spectral sky
Appears the sun, and laughs in mockery down
On the groping travellers far from where they deem,
In unconjectured roads; the dwindled stream
Of traffic in slow confusion crawling by:
The baffled hive of helpless man laid bare.
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