The Night City

By W. S. Graham 1918–1986

Unmet at Euston in a dream

Of London under Turner’s steam

Misting the iron gantries, I

Found myself running away

From Scotland into the golden city.

I ran down Gray’s Inn Road and ran

Till I was under a black bridge.

This was me at nineteen

Late at night arriving between

The buildings of the City of London.

And the I (O I have fallen down)

Fell in my dream beside the Bank

Of England’s wall to be, me

With my money belt of Northern ice.

I found Eliot and he said yes

And sprang into a Holmes cab.

Boswell passed me in the fog

Going to visit Whistler who

Was with John Donne who had just seen

Paul Potts shouting on Soho Green.

Midnight. I hear the moon

Light chiming on St Paul’s.

The City is empty. Night

Watchmen are drinking their tea,

The Fire had burnt out.

The Plague’s pits had closed

And gone into literature.

Between the big buildings

I sat like a flea crouched

In the stopped works of a watch.

Source: Selected Works (Ecco Press, 1980)

Biography

W. S. Graham was born to a working-class family in Scotland and grew up in Clydeside, where he worked as an engineer. He traveled to London and New York City, then returned to spend the rest of his adult life in Cornwall where his associates included many of the post-war British artists. Graham's first collection of poetry, Cage without Grievance, was published in 1942. It was followed by The Seven Journeys (1944), 2nd Poems . . .

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