PS Cottier

In a London Drawingroom

The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.
For view there are the houses opposite
Cutting the sky with one long line of wall
Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch
Monotony of surface & of form
Without a break to hang a guess upon.
No bird can make a shadow as it flies,
For all is shadow, as in ways o’erhung
By thickest canvass, where the golden rays
Are clothed in hemp. No figure lingering
Pauses to feed the hunger of the eye
Or rest a little on the lap of life.
All hurry on & look upon the ground,
Or glance unmarking at the passers by
The wheels are hurrying too, cabs, carriages
All closed, in multiplied identity.
The world seems one huge prison-house & court
Where men are punished at the slightest cost,
With lowest rate of colour, warmth & joy.

George Eliot

Such a modernist sounding work; even a tad of the other Eliot (T.S.) about it, but this was written in the 1870s. It was not published during Eliot’s lifetime.

For further poetry, please press this feather, and you may find more Victorian poetry. Or you may not. I’m not promising, you know.

Don’t forget, if you’re in Canberra, to come to the reading at Smiths, Alinga Street, Thursday 20th at 6pm, with Nigel Featherstone, JC Inman and myself. Unfortunately George Eliot can’t make it.