9/23/2020 5:26:56 PM #.0.2# You Are Here: The City Of Dreadful Night Poem by James Thomson - Poem Hunter Comments And since he cannot spend and use aright The little time here given him in trust, But wasteth it in weary undelight Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust, He naturally claimeth to inherit The everlasting Future, that his merit May have full scope; as surely is most just. Search for poems and poets using the Poetry Search Engine. "isFamilyFriendly": true, VI I sat forlornly by the river-side, And watched the bridge-lamps glow like golden stars Above the blackness of the swelling tide, Down which they struck rough gold in ruddier bars; And heard the heave and plashing of the flow Against the wall a dozen feet below. And as I pondered these opposed shapes My eyelids sank in stupor, that dull swoon Which drugs and with a leaden mantle drapes The outworn to worse weariness. From preaching to an audience fired with faith The Lamb who died to save our souls from death, Whose blood hath washed our scarlet sins wool-white: I wake from daydreams to this real night. "description": "Breadcrumbs list", James B.V. Thomson. Before it, opposite my place of rest, Two figures faced each other, large, austere; A couchant sphinx in shadow to the breast, An angel standing in the moonlight clear; So mighty by magnificence of form, They were not dwarfed beneath that mass enorm. "@type": "GeoCoordinates", I reached the portal common spirits fear, And read the words above it, dark yet clear, \"Leave hope behind, all ye who enter here:\" And would have passed in, gratified to gain That positive eternity of pain Instead of this insufferable inane. ", If Eliot’s The Waste Land seems miserable, have a go at reading James Thomson’s The City of Dreadful Night.He was Scottish, alcoholic and depressive. While thou dost not awake I cannot move; And something tells me thou wilt never wake, And I alive feel turning into stone. The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms, Amidst the soundless solitudes immense Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs. ... "Oh, Lord! var ca = document.cookie.split(';'); As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert: Lo you, there, That hillock burning with a brazen glare; Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro; A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped pell-mell For Devil's roll-call and some fete of Hell: Yet I strode on austere; No hope could have no fear. From drinking fiery poison in a den Crowded with tawdry girls and squalid men, Who hoarsely laugh and curse and brawl and fight: I wake from daydreams to this real night. James Thomson, who wrote under the pseudonym Bysshe Vanolis, was a Victorian-era poet famous primarily for the long poem The City of Dreadful Night (1874), an expression of bleak pessimism in a dehumanized, uncaring urban environment. This dreadful strain Of thought and consciousness which never ceases, Or which some moments' stupor but increases, This, worse than woe, makes wretches there insane. "@type": "Organization", Buy The City of Dreadful Night, [and Other Poems] (Volume 2) by Thomson, James (ISBN: 9781151975300) from Amazon's Book Store. "email": "noreply@poemhunter.com", }, "description": "Poems from different poets all around the world. The poem charts a city, based on London, as the contours of utter isolation, misery, despair. } I have seen phantoms there that were as men And men that were as phantoms flit and roam; Marked shapes that were not living to my ken, Caught breathings acrid as with Dead Sea foam: The City rests for man so weird and awful, That his intrusion there might seem unlawful, And phantoms there may have their proper home. betrayed! With weary tread, Each wrapt in his own doom, they wander, wander, Or sit foredone and desolately ponder Through sleepless hours with heavy drooping head. City of Dreadful Night, The - Part 10. by James Thomson. [ 1] LXX [1] Life divided by that persistent three = --- = .210. As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert: I was twain, Two selves distinct that cannot join again; One stood apart and knew but could not stir, And watched the other stark in swoon and her; And she came on, and never turned aside, Between such sun and moon and roaring tide: And as she came more near My soul grew mad with fear. The mansion stood apart in its own ground; In front thereof a fragrant garden-lawn, High trees about it, and the whole walled round: The massy iron gates were both withdrawn; And every window of its front shed light, The City of Dreadful Night is a warning not to slide too far to one end of the scale, and let your worldview become an unbearable trap. Search for poems and poets using the Poetry Search Engine. The City of Dreadful Night is a study in melancholia and the introverted mind. "addressCountry": "USA", "postalCode": "CA 94104", The uncertainty reflects the changes taking place in Victorian Era; the poem was written in 1873, only a few decades after the Industrial Revolution had taken place. And so you know it not! City of Dreadful Night, The - Part 18. by James Thomson. XIV Large glooms were gathered in the mighty fane, With tinted moongleams slanting here and there; And all was hush: no swelling organ-strain, No chant, no voice or murmuring of prayer; No priests came forth, no tinkling censers fumed, And the high altar space was unillumed. No one would cede a little of his store, Though knowing that in instants three or four He must resign the whole for evermore. "name": "MainPage", The City of Dreadful Night is a long poem by the Scottish poet James 'B.V'. I kneel here patient as thou liest there; As patient as a statue carved in stone, Of adoration and eternal grief. Upon the cross-hilt of the naked sword The angel's hands, as prompt to smite, were held; His vigilant intense regard was poured Upon the creature placidly unquelled, Whose front was set at level gaze which took No heed of aught, a solemn trance-like look. abhorred Malignant and implacable! Then turning to the right went on once more And travelled weary roads without suspense; And reached at last a low wall's open door, Whose villa gleamed beyond the foliage dense: He gazed, and muttered with a hard despair, Here Love died, stabbed by its own worshipped pair. Thousands of poems, quotes and poets. Sinopsis . The City is of Night, but not of Sleep; There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain; The pitiless hours like years and ages creep, A night seems termless hell. "url": "https://www.poemhunter.com" From writing a great work with patient plan To justify the ways of God to man, And show how ill must fade and perish quite: I wake from daydreams to this real night. "@type": "Organization", He gasped all trembling, What, you want my prize? What merchandise? This is from the poem “The City of Dreadful Night” by James Thomson, (1834-1882). IV He stood alone within the spacious square Declaiming from the central grassy mound, With head uncovered and with streaming hair, As if large multitudes were gathered round: A stalwart shape, the gestures full of might, The glances burning with unnatural light:-- As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert: All was black, In heaven no single star, on earth no track; A brooding hush without a stir or note, The air so thick it clotted in my throat; And thus for hours; then some enormous things Swooped past with savage cries and clanking wings: But I strode on austere; No hope could have no fear. , based on London, the City as a Victorian poet written 1870! Horror ever deepening from the evil lethargy I woke gasped all trembling, What, you my. 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