Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SIGNS OF THE PLAGUE, by JOHN WILSON (1785-1854)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SIGNS OF THE PLAGUE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Why does the finger / yellow midst the sunshine
Last Line: Still as a rainbow in the pathless sky,
Alternate Author Name(s): North, Christopher
Subject(s): Plague


WHY does the finger,
Yellow mid the sunshine, on the minster-clock,
Point at that hour? It is most horrible,
Speaking of midnight in the face of day.
During the very dead of night it stopp'd,
Even at the moment when a hundred hearts
Paused with it suddenly, to beat no more.
Yet, wherefore should it run its idle round?
There is no need that men should count the hours
Of time, thus standing on eternity.
It is a death-like image. How can I,
When round me silent nature speaks of death
Withstand such monitory impulses?
When yet far off I thought upon the plague,
Sometimes my mother's image struck my soul,
In unchanged meekness and serenity,
And all my fears were gone. But these green banks,
With an unwonted flush of flowers o'ergrown,
Brown, when I left them last, with frequent feet
From morn till evening hurrying to and fro,
In mournful beauty seem encompassing
A still forsaken city of the dead.
O unrejoicing Sabbath! not of yore
Did thy sweet evenings die along the Thames
Thus silently! Now every sail is furl'd,
The oar hath dropt from out the rower's hand,
And on thou flowest in lifeless majesty,
River of a desert lately fill'd with joy!
O'er all that mighty wilderness of stone
The air is clear and cloudless, as at sea
Above the gliding ship. All fires are dead,
And not one single wreath of smoke ascends
Above the stillness of the towers and spires.
How idly hangs that arch magnificent
Across the idle river! Not a speck
Is seen to move along it. There it hangs,
Still as a rainbow in the pathless sky,





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