London

A History in Verse

Mark Ford, Mark Ford

• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780674273702
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

Called "the flour of Cities all, " London has long been understood through the poetry it has inspired. Now poet Mark Ford has assembled the most capacious and wide-ranging anthology of poems about London to date, from Chaucer to Wordsworth to the present day, providing a chronological tour of urban life and of English literature.Nearly all of the major poets of British literature have left some poetic record of London: Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, and T. S. Eliot. Ford goes well beyond these figures, however, to gather significant verse of all kinds, from Jacobean city comedies to nursery rhymes, from topical satire to anonymous ballads. The result is a cultural history of the city in verse, one that represents all classes of London's population over some seven centuries, mingling the high and low, the elegant and the salacious, the courtly and the street smart. Many of the poems respond to large events in the city's history—the beheading of Charles I, the Great Fire, the Blitz—but the majority reflect the quieter routines and anxieties of everyday life through the centuries.Ford's selections are arranged chronologically, thus preserving a sense of the strata of the capital's history. An introductory essay by the poet explores in detail the cultural, political, and aesthetic significance of the verse inspired by this great city. The result is a volume as rich and vibrant and diverse as London itself.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• John Gower (1330?–1408) From Confessio Amantis
• William Langland (1330?–1386?) From The Vision Of Piers Plowman
• Geoffrey Chaucer (1343?–1400) From The Canterbury Tales
• Thomas Hoccleve (1367?–1426) From La Male Regle De T. Hoccleue
• John Lydgate (1370?–1449/50) From King Henry Vi’s Triumphal Entry Into London
• Anon. (15th Century) London Lickpenny
• John Skelton (1460?–1529) From Collyn Clout
• Anon. (1500?) “london, Thou Art Of Townes A Per Se
• Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542) “tagus, Farewell, That Westward With Thy Streams
• “who List His Wealth And Ease Retain
• Henry Howard, Earl Of Surrey (1517?–1547) “london, Hast Thou Accusèd Me
• Anne Askew (1521–1546) The Ballad Which Anne Askew Made And Sang When She Was In Newgate
• George Turberville (1544?–1597?) The Lover To The Thames Of London, To Favour His Lady Passing Thereon
• Isabella Whitney (1548?–?) The Manner Of Her Will, And What She Left To London And To All Those In It, At Her Departing
• Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) Prothalamion
• George Peele (1556–1596) From King Edward The First
• Chidiock Tichborne (1558?–1586) Tichborne’s Elegy
• Michael Drayton (1563–1631) From Poly-olbion 84 William Shakespeare (1564–1616) From Henry Vi, Part Ii
• From Henry V
• From Henry Viii
• Thomas Nashe (1567?–1601) From Summer’s Last Will And Testament
• Everard Guilpin (1572?–?) From Skialetheia
• Ben Jonson (1572?–1637) From The Devil Is An Ass
• On The Famous Voyage
• John Donne (1572–1631) Satire 1
• To Mr. E. G
• Epithalamion Made At Lincoln’s Inn
• Satire 4
• Twickenham Garden
• John Taylor (1580–1653) From The Sculler
• From Sir Gregory Nonsense’s News From No Place
• Philip Massinger (1583–1640) From The City Madam
• Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) And John Fletcher (1579–1625) From The Knight Of The Burning Pestle
• Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) Letter To Ben Jonson
• On The Tombs In Westminster Abbey
• Thomas Freeman (1590?–1630?) From London’s Progress
• W. Turner (?) From Turner’s Dish Of Lenten Stuff, Or A Gallimaufry
• Abraham Holland (?–1626) From London, Look Back
• Robert Herrick (1591–1674) An Ode For Him [ben Jonson
• His Return To London
• His Tears To Thamasis
• Anon. (1640s, Pub. 1662) London Sad London: An Echo
• Edmund Waller (1606–1687) On The Statue Of King Charles I At Charing Cross
• On St. James’s Park, As Lately Improved By His Majesty
• John Milton (1608–1674) When The Assault Was Intended To The City
• Sir John Suckling (1609–1642) A Ballad Upon A Wedding
• Thomas Jordan (1612?–1685) From The Cheaters Cheated
• From The Triumphs Of London
• A Song Sung At The Lord Mayor’s Table In Honour Of The City And The Goldsmiths Company
• Sir John Denham (1615–1669) From Cooper’s Hill
• Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) From The Civil War
• Richard Lovelace (1618–1657/8) To Althea, From Prison: Song
• Simon Ford (1619?–1699) From London’s Resurrection
• Henry Vaughan (1621–1695) A Rhapsody
• Anon. (17th Century) The Cries Of London
• Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return From Ireland
• John Dryden (1631–1700) From Annus Mirabilis
• From Macflecknoe
• Anon. (pub. 1680) In The Fields Of Lincoln’s Inn
• John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester (1647–1680) From A Letter From Artemisa In The Town To Chloe In The Country
• Song (“quoth The Duchess Of Cleveland To Counselor Knight
• A Ramble In St. James’s Park
• John Oldham (1653–1683) From A Satire In Imitation Of The Third Of Juvenal
• Anon. (1684) A Winter Wonder; Or, The Thames Frozen Over, With Remarks On The Resort There
• Anon. (1684) From The Wonders Of The Deep
• Pierre Antoine Motteux (1660–1718) A Song
• Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) A Description Of The Morning
• A Description Of A City Shower
• Clever Tom Clinch
• A Beautiful Young Nymph Going To Bed
• From On Poetry: A Rhapsody
• John Gay (1685–1732) From Trivia: Or, The Art Of Walking The Streets Of London
• From The Beggar’s Opera
• Anon. (pub. 1719) The Fair Lass Of Islington
• Alexander Pope (1688–1744) The Alley. An Imitation Of Spenser
• A Farewell To London In The Year 1715
• Epistle To Miss Blount, On Her Leaving The Town, After The Coronation
• From The Dunciad
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) From Six Town Eclogues
• Elizabeth Tollet (1694–1754) On The Prospect From Westminster Bridge, March 1750
• John Bancks (1709–1751) A Description Of London
• Anon. (1739) Hail, London
• Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) From London
• Nursery Rhymes (pub. 18th–19th Centuries) London Bridge
• Oranges And Lemons
• “pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been
• “poussie, Poussie, Baudrons
• “up At Piccadilly Oh
• “see-saw, Sacradown
• “upon Paul’s Steeple Stands A Tree
• “as I Was Going O’er London Bridge
• “as I Was Going O’er London Bridge
• “i Had A Little Hobby Horse, It Was Well Shod
• Pop Goes The Weasel
• William Whitehead (1715–1785) The Sweepers
• Oliver Goldsmith (1729–1774) Description Of An Author’s Bedchamber
• William Cowper (1731–1800) From The Task
• Charles Jenner (1736–1774) From Town Eclogues
• Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743–1825) Song For The London Volunteers
• West End Fair
• Charles Dibdin (1745?–1814) The Jolly Young Waterman
• Poll Of Wapping
• Hannah More (1745–1833) From The Gin-shop; Or, A Peep Into Prison
• Mary Robinson (1757–1800) London’s Summer Morning
• William Blake (1757–1827) Holy Thursday
• The Chimney Sweeper
• London
• From Jerusalem
• Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) London
• William Wordsworth (1770–1850) The Farmer Of Tilsbury Vale
• The Reverie Of Poor Susan
• Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
• From The Prelude
• James Smith (1775–1839) And Horace Smith (1779–1849) From Horace In London
• Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) To Hampstead
• Description Of Hampstead
• Lord Byron (1788–1824) From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
• From Don Juan
• Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) From Letter To Maria Gisborne
• From Peter Bell The Third
• John Hamilton Reynolds (1794–1852) Sonnet
• John Keats (1795–1821) “to One Who Has Been Long In City Pent
• On Seeing The Elgin Marbles
• Lines On The Mermaid Tavern
• Thomas Hood (1799–1845) Moral Reflections On The Cross Of St. Paul’s
• The Lord Mayor’s Show
• Sonnet To Vauxhall
• The Workhouse Clock: An Allegory
• Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) Scenes In London: Piccadilly
• Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839) Goodnight To The Season
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) From Aurora Leigh
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) From In Memoriam
• From Ode On The Death Of The Duke Of Wellington
• Cleopatra’s Needle
• Anon. (1851) Have You Been To The Crystal Palace
• Robert Browning (1812–1889) From Waring
• Edward Lear (1812–1888) There Was An Old Person Of Putney
• There Was An Old Man Of Blackheath
• There Was A Young Person Of Kew
• There Was An Old Person Of Bow
• There Was A Young Lady Of Greenwich
• There Was An Old Person Of Ealing
• There Was An Old Person Of Bromley
• There Was An Old Person Of Sheen
• There Was An Old Man Of Thames Ditton
• Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) To The Great Metropolis
• In The Great Metropolis
• “blessed Are Those Who Have Not Seen
• “ye Flags Of Piccadilly
• Anon. (19th Century) From The Cries Of London
• George Eliot (1819–1880) In A London Drawingroom
• Anon. (1869) Strike Of The London Cabmen
• Frederick Locker-lampson (1821–1895) St. James’s Street
• Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) Lines Written In Kensington Gardens
• West London
• East London
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) Tiber, Nile, And Thames
• Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) A London Fête
• James Thomson (1834–1882) From Sunday At Hampstead
• Henry S. Leigh (1837–1883) A Cockney’s Evening Song
• Anon. (1893) Bloomsbury
• Austin Dobson (1840–1921) A New Song Of The Spring Garden
• Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) Beyond The Last Lamp
• The Coronation
• In The British Museum
• In St. Paul’s A While Ago
• Coming Up Oxford Street: Evening
• A Refusal
• To A Tree In London
• Christmas In The Elgin Room
• W. H. Hudson (1841–1922) To A London Sparrow
• Robert Bridges (1844–1930) London Snow
• Trafalgar Square
• W. E. Henley (1849–1903) From London Voluntaries
• From London Types
• Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Impression Du Matin
• John Davidson (1857–1909) London
• Thirty Bob A Week
• In The Isle Of Dogs
• Fog
• From The Thames Embankment
• A. E. Housman (1859–1936) “from The Wash The Laundress Sends
• Mary E. Coleridge (1861–1907) In London Town
• Amy Levy (1861–1889) A March Day In London
• Straw In The Street
• London Poets
• Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) In Partibus
• The River’s Tale
• London Stone
• The Craftsman
• From Epitaphs Of The War
• Arthur Symons (1865–1945) From London Nights
• From Décor De Théâtre
• London
• W. B. Yeats (1865–1939) From Vacillation
• Lionel Johnson (1867–1902) London Town
• By The Statue Of King Charles At Charing Cross
• Charlotte Mew (1869–1928) In Nunhead Cemetery
• Laurence Binyon (1869–1943) As I Walked Through London
• T. E. Hulme (1883–1917) The Embankment
• Ezra Pound (1885–1972) Portrait D’une Femme
• The Garden
• Simulacra
• From Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
• D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) Flat Suburbs, S.w., In The Morning
• From Guards
• Bombardment
• Hyde Park At Night, Before The War
• Embankment At Night, Before The War
• Town In 1917
• Frances Cornford (1886–1960) London Streets
• Parting In Wartime
• Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) Monody On The Demolition Of Devonshire House
• T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) From The Waste Land
• From Sweeney Agonistes
• From Four Quartets
• Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1918) Fleet Street
• Richard Aldington (1892–1962) St. Mary’s, Kensington
• In The Tube
• Hampstead Heath
• London
• Whitechapel
• Eros And Psyche
• Wilfred Owen (1893–1918) “i Am The Ghost Of Shadwell Stair
• Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978) Song From The Bride Of Smithfield
• East London Cemetery
• John Rodker (1894–1955) The Shop
• The Searchlight
• Robert Graves (1895–1985) Armistice Day, 1918
• A. S. J. Tessimond (1902–1962) Tube Station
• London
• Summer Night At Hyde Park Corner
• Autumn
• The City: Midday Nocturne
• Stevie Smith (1902–1971) Suburb
• William Empson (1906–1984) Homage To The British Museum
• John Betjeman (1906–1984) The Arrest Of Oscar Wilde At The Cadogan Hotel
• In Westminster Abbey
• Parliament Hill Fields
• St. Saviour’s, Aberdeen Park, Highbury, London, N
• The Metropolitan Railway
• Business Girls
• N.w.5 & N.6
• From Summoned By Bells
• Louis Macneice (1907–1963) From Autumn Journal
• The British Museum Reading Room
• Goodbye To London
• Charon
• Stephen Spender (1909–1995) Hampstead Autumn
• Epilogue To A Human Drama
• Bernard Spencer (1909–1963) Regent’s Park Terrace
• Train To Work
• Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) London Buses
• Kenneth Allott (1912–1973) Memento Mori
• Roy Fuller (1912–1991) First Winter Of War
• Battersea: After Dunkirk, June 3, 1940
• London Air-raid, 1940
• Anne Ridler (1912–2001) Wentworth Place: Keats Grove
• George Barker (1913–1991) Kew Gardens
• Alun Lewis (1915–1944) Westminster Abbey
• Robert Lowell (1917–1977) From Redcliffe Square
• From Winter And London
• Nicholas Moore (1918–1986) Monmouth Street
• John Heath-stubbs (1918–2006) London Architecture 1960s
• Lament For The “old Swan,” Notting Hill Gate
• W. S. Graham (1918–1986) The Night City
• Muriel Spark (1918–2006) From A Tour Of London
• Keith Douglas (1920–1944) From The “bête Noire” Fragments
• D. J. Enright (1920–2002) The Stations Of King’s Cross
• Philip Larkin (1922–1985) Deceptions
• Naturally The Foundation Will Bear Your Expenses
• Donald Davie (1922–1995) To Londoners
• Dannie Abse (1923–2014) Street Scene
• Soho: Saturday Night
• James Berry (1924–) Two Black Labourers On A London Building Site
• Beginning In A City, 1948
• John Ashbery (1927–) The Tower Of London
• Thom Gunn (1929–2004) Autobiography
• Talbot Road
• Connie Bensley (1929–) Vauxhall
• Bottleneck
• Peter Porter (1929–2010) Thomas Hardy At Westbourne Park Villas
• U. A. Fanthorpe (1929–2009) Rising Damp
• Widening The Westway
• Ted Hughes (1930–1998) Fate Playing
• Epiphany
• Derek Walcott (1930–) From Omeros
• Alan Brownjohn (1931–) A202
• Ruth Fainlight (1931–) The Same Power
• Geoffrey Hill (1932–) Churchill’s Funeral
• To The High Court Of Parliament
• Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) Parliament Hill Fields
• Anne Stevenson (1933–) Cashpoint Charlie
• Fleur Adcock (1934–) Miss Hamilton In London
• Londoner
• To Marilyn From London
• John Fuller (1937–) From London Songs
• From The Shires
• Ken Smith (1938–2003) From The London Poems
• Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) The Underground
• District And Circle
• Lee Harwood (1939–) Rain Journal: London: June 65
• Grey Gowrie (1939–) Outside Biba’s
• Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) From In England 652 Derek Mahon (1941–) Sunday Morning
• Hugo Williams (1942–) Tavistock Square
• Bar Italia
• Bar Italia
• Notting Hill
• Iain Sinclair (1943–) Bunhill Fields
• Hurricane Drummers: Self-aid In Haggerston
• Mimi Khalvati (1944–) Earls Court
• Carol Rumens (1944–) Pleasure Island, Marble Arch
• Wendy Cope (1945–) Lonely Hearts
• After The Lunch
• Peter Reading (1946–2011) From Perduta Gente
• Christopher Reid (1949–) North London Sonnet
• Exasperated Piety
• Gillian Allnutt (1949–) Museum, 19 Princelet Street, Spitalfields
• John Agard (1949–) Toussaint L’ouverture Acknowledges Wordsworth’s Sonnet “to Toussaint L’ouverture
• Chilling Out Beside The Thames
• Grace Nichols (1950–) Island Man
• Charles Boyle (1951–) The Miracle At Shepherd’s Bush
• Andrew Motion (1952–) London Plane
• Linton Kwesi Johnson (1952–) Sonny’s Lettah
• Jo Shapcott (1953–) St. Bride’s
• Michael Donaghy (1954–2004) The River Glideth Of His Own Sweet Will
• Poem On The Underground
• Jeremy Reed (1954–) Quentin Crisp As Prime Minister
• From Sainthood: Elegies For Derek Jarman
• John Stammers (1954–) John Keats Walks Home Following A Night Spent Reading Homer With Cowden Clarke
• Carol Ann Duffy (1955–) Woman Seated In The Underground, 1941
• Alan Jenkins (1955–) From The London Dissector
• Jamie Mckendrick (1955–) Occupations Of Bridewell
• Penal Architecture
• The Deadhouse
• Mick Imlah (1956–2009) Cockney
• Sarah Maguire (1957–) Almost The Equinox
• Michael Hofmann (1957–) From Kensal Rise To Heaven
• From A To B And Back Again
• Malvern Road
• Maura Dooley (1957–) Smash The Windows
• David Kennedy (1959–) The Bombs, July 2005
• Fred D’aguiar (1960–) Home
• Lavinia Greenlaw (1962–)
• Glyn Maxwell (1962–) The Fires By The River
• Simon Armitage (1963–) Kx
• Alice Oswald (1966–) Another Westminster Bridge
• Daljit Nagra (1966–) Yobbos
• Nick Laird (1975–) The Tip
• Heather Phillipson (1978–) German Phenomenology Makes Me Want To Strip And Run Through North London
• Ben Borek (1980–) From Donjong Heights
• Tom Chivers (1983–) Big Skies Over Docklands
• Ahren Warner (1986–)
• Credits
• Index Of Poets
• Index Of Titles