Lord Alfred Douglas (1870 – 1945) is infamously known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer and wit Oscar Wilde.
However, 'Bosie' was also an accomplished poet and, over the next few days, I shall be posting a selection of his verse.
Here is the first:
IMPRESSION DE NUIT (LONDON)
See what a mass of gems the city wears
Upon her broad live bosom! row on row
Rubies and emeralds and amethysts glow.
See! that huge circle like a necklace, stares
With thousands of bold eyes to heaven, and dares
The golden stars to dim the lamps below,
And in the mirror of the mire I know
The moon has left her image unawares.
That's the great town at night: I see her breasts,
Pricked out with lamps they stand like huge black towers.
I think they move! I hear her panting breath.
And that's her head where the tiara rests.
And in her brain, through lanes as dark as death,
Men creep like thoughts...The lamps are like pale flowers
Lord Alfred Douglas
The imagery gives one the atmosphere of a living city. The lives of it's inhabitants sustain it's life. 'Bosie' is clever. London is a clever city too - full of twists and turns. I read LONDON once by Edward Rutherford and the image of the wild river Thames and the marsh that London was built upon comes to mind with the above poem.
Also reminds me of that fifties movie, "Footsteps in the Fog" with Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons!
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes..." T.S. Eliot