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London

A History in Verse

Edited by Mark Ford

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PAPERBACK

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ISBN 9780674088047

Publication Date: 11/16/2015

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784 pages

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  • 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
  • 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 Honor 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</li>
    • 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”
    • “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 (V)
    • 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 the 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
  • 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–)
    • River History
  • 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–)
    • Διόνυσος [Dionysus]
  • Credits
  • Index of Poets
  • Index of Titles

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