Poem of the Day: ‘The Lights of London’

America is not best known for its Catholic poets, but Louise Imogen Guiney (1861-1920) should not be as forgotten as she is. Scrabbling for jobs as a young woman in Boston, she worked as an editor and library cataloguer, while doing the reading and imaginative work that would issue during the 1880s in essays, fairy tales, and poetry. A two-year trip to England cemented the sense of chivalry and hunger for old, pre-Reformation forms of English verse. She moved to Oxford in 1901, where she remained through the ill-health that shortened her life.Her scholarship and fascination with such figures as the 17th-century Welsh metaphysical poet, Henry Vaughan, gave her new paths for her verse, particularly in the 1893 volume, “A Roadside Harp.” A good example is today’s Poem of the Day, “The Lights of London,” an almost mystical account of that moment when, seen from the countryside, London goes dark: that moment at dusk between the sunlight and the artificial lights coming on. A Petrarchan sonnet, rhymed abbaabba cdccdc, “The Lights of London” is not fond of the city. London, Guiney writes, has streets that “Sparkle and swarm with nothing true nor sure.” And even Heaven “cannot cure / Her tear by day, her fevered smile by night.” But as a contrast to the pastoralism of the opening octave, the concluding sextet could hardly be bettered.The Lights of Londonby Louise Imogen GuineyThe evenfall, so slow on hills, hath shot Far down into the valley’s cold extreme, Untimely midnight; spire and roof and stream Like fleeing specters, shudder and are not. The Hampstead hollies, from their sylvan plot Yet cloudless, lean to watch as in a dream, From chaos climb with many a sudden gleam, London, one moment fallen and forgot. Her booths begin to flare; and gases bright Prick door and window; all her streets obscure Sparkle and swarm with nothing true nor sure, Full as a marsh of mist and winking light; Heaven thickens over, Heaven that cannot cure Her tear by day, her fevered smile by night.___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘The Lights of London’

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