In a London Drawingroom

By George Eliot 1819–1880 George Eliot

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.

Biography

George Eliot is widely recognized as one of the most important writers of the nineteenth century; yet her two volumes of poetry are often ignored in modern critical assessments. Like so many of her contemporaries, Eliot tried to make significant literary contributions in more than one genre; her poems—both narrative and lyric—deal, however, with some of the same themes which inform her novels and short stories. Her poems are . . .

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