The City of Dreadful Night by James ThomsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
As I came through this poem thus it was,
As I came through this poem: All was black,
The lines did burn like lamps yet light did lack,
A brooding tone, without a stirring note,
To read aloud, to stifle soul at throat.
The song does throb like enormous thing
That swoops with sullen moan and clanking wing:
      But we read on austere;
      Once done, we'll have a beer!
This poem will help us bring back goth in 2018, rife as it is with sighs for senseless death, mockery, moons of triump, rivers of suicides and a "There is no God" sermon to make Marylin Manson proud. I came across the poem in Raymond Williams' The Country and the City, with its catalog of pessimisms regarding the image of the city. (In theory, the image of the city could and should inspire dreams of dread in Chinese literature, as well.)
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