LONDON. Joanna Baillie Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Baillie, Joanna, 1762-1851. Fugitive Verses. By Joanna Baillie, author of “Dramas on the Passions,“ etc. London Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXL. 1840 pp. 140-142.

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LONDON . IT is a goodly sight through the clear air , From Hampstead's heathy height , to see at once England's vast capital in fair expanse , Towers , belfries , lengthened streets and structures fair . St. Paul's high dome amidst the vassal bands Of neighb'ring spires , a regal chieftain stands , And over fields of ridgy roofs appear , With distance softly tinted , side by side , In kindred grace , like twain of sisters dear , The Towers of Westminster , her Abbey's pride ; While , far beyond , the hills of Surrey shine Through thin soft haze , and shew their wavy line . View'd thus , a goodly sight ! but when survey'd Through denser air when moisten'd winds prevail , In her grand panoply of smoke arrayed , While clouds aloft in heavy volumes sail , She is sublime . — She seems a curtained gloom Connecting heaven and earth , — a threat'ning sign of doom . With more than natural height , reared in the sky 'Tis then St. Paul's arrests the wondering eye ; The lower parts in swathing mist concealed , The higher through some half-spent shower revealed , So far from earth removed , that well , I trow , Did not its form man's artful structure shew , It might some lofty alpine peak be deemed , The eagle's haunt with cave and crevice seamed . Stretched wide on either hand , a rugged skreen , In lurid dimness , nearer streets are seen Like shore-ward billows of a troubled main , Arrested in their rage . Through drizly rain , Cataracts of tawny sheen pour from the skies , Black furnace-smoke in curling columns rise , And many-tinted vapours , slowly pass O'er the wide draping of that pictured mass . So shews by day this grand imperial town , And , when o'er all the night's black stole is thrown , The distant traveller doth with wonder mark Her luminous canopy athwart the dark , Cast up , from myriads of lamps that shine Along her streets in many a starry line : — He wondering looks from his yet distant road , And thinks the northern streamers are abroad . " What hollow sound is that ? " approaching near , The roar of many wheels breaks on his ear . It is the flood of human life in motion ! It is the voice of a tempestuous ocean ! With sad but pleasing awe his soul is filled , Scarce heaves his breast , and all within is stilled , As many thoughts and feelings cross his mind , — Thoughts , mingled , melancholy , undefined , Of restless , reckless man , and years gone by , And Time fast wending to Eternity .