London : a history in verse / edited by Mark Ford.

John Gower Confessio amantis
William Langland The vision of piers plowman
Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury tales
Thomas Hoccleve La male regle de T Hoccleue
John Lydgate King Henry VI's triumphal entry into London
Anon. (15th century) London lickpenny
John Skelton Collyn Clout
Anon. (1500?) "London, thou art of townes A perse"
Sir Thomas Wyatt "Tagus, farewell, that westward with thy streams" "Who list his wealth and ease retain"
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey "London, hast thou accusèd me"
Anne Askew The ballad which Anne Askew made and sang when she was in Newgate
George Turberville The lover to the Thames of London, to favour his lady passing thereon
Isabella Whitney The manner of her will, and what she left to London and to all those in it, at her departing
Edmund Spenser Prothalamion
George Peele King Edward the first
Chidiock Tichborne Tichborne's elegy
Michael Drayton Poly-olbion
William Shakespeare Henry VI, part II Henry V from Henry VIII
Thomas Nashe Summer's last will and testament
Everard Guilpin Skialetheia
Ben Jonson The devil in an ass On the famous voyage
John Donne Satire 1 To Mr. E. G. Epithalamion made at Lincoln's inn Satire 4 Twickenham garden


John Taylor The sculler ; from Sir Gregory Nonsense's news from no place
Philip Massinger The city madam
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher The knight of the burning pestle
Francis Beaumont Letter to Ben Johnson On the tombs in Westminster Abbey
Thomas Freeman London's progress
W. Turner Turner's dish of Lenten stuff, or a Gallimaufry
Abraham Holland London, look back
Robert Herrick An ode for him [Ben Jonson] His return to London His tears to Thamasis
Anon. (1640s, pub. 1662) London sad London : an echo
Edmund Waller On the statue of King Charles I at Charing Cross On St. James's park, as lately improved by his majesty
John Milton When the assault was intended to the city
Thomas Jordan The cheaters cheated from The triumphs of London A song sung at the lord mayor's table in honour of the city and the goldsmith's company
Sir John Denham Cooper's hill
Abraham Cowley The civil war
Richard Lovelace To Althea, from prison : song
Simon Ford London's resurrection
Henry Vaughan A rhapsody
Anon. (17th century) The cries of London
Andrew Marvell An Horatian ode upon Cromwell's return from Ireland
r ohn DrydenSimon Armitage Annus Mirabilis ; from MacFlecknoe
Anon. (pub. 1680) In the fields of Lincoln's inn
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester A letter from Artemisa in the town to Chloe in the country Song ("Quoth the duchess of Cleveland to counselor knight") A ramble in St. James's park


John Oldham A satire in imitation of the third of juvenal
Anon. (1684) A winter wonder: or, The Thames frozen over, with remarks on the resort there
Anon. (1684) The wonders of the deep
Pierre Antoine Motteux A song
Jonathan Swift A description of the morning A description of a city shower Clever Tom Clinch A beautiful young nymph going to bed ; from On poetry : a rhapsody
John Gay Trivia : or, The art of walking the streets of London ; from The beggar's opera
Anon. (pub. 1719) The fair lass of Islington
Alexander Pope The alley : an imitation of Spenser A farewell to London in the year 1715 Epistle to Miss Bount, on her leaving the town, after the coronation ; from The dunciad
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Six town eclogues
Elizabeth Tollet On the prospect from Westminster bridge, March 1750
John Bancks A description of London
Anon. (1739) Hail, London!
Samuel Johnson London
Nursery Rhymes (pub. 18th-19th centuries) London bridge Oranges and lemons "Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?" "Poussie, poussie, baudrons" "Up at Piccadilly oh!" "See-saw, sacradown" "Upon Paul's steeple stands a tree" "As I was going o'er London bridge" "As I was going o'er London bridge" [sic] "I had a little hobby horse, it was well shod" Pop goes the weasel
William Whitehead The sweepers
Oliver Goldsmith Description of an author's bedchamber
William Cowper The task
Charles Jenner Twon eclogues
Anna Letitia Barbauld Song for the London volunteers West End fair
Charles Dibdin The jolly young waterman Poll of wapping
Hannah More The gin-shop: or, A peep into prison


Mary Robinson London's summer morning
William Blake Holy Thursday The chimney sweeper ; from Jerusalem
Joanna Baillie London
William Wordsworth The farmer of Tilsbury Vale The reverie of poor Susan ; Composed upon Westminster bridge, September 3, 1802 ; from The prelude
James Smith and Horace Smith Horace in London
Leigh Hunt To Hampstead Description of Hampstead
Lord Byron Childe Harold's pilgrimage ; from Don Juan
Percy Bysshe Shelley Letter to Maria Gisborne ; from Peter Bell the third
John Hamilton Reynolds Sonnet
John Keats "To one who has been long in city pent" On seeing the Elgin marbles Lines on the Mermaid tavern
Thomas Hood Moral reflections on the cross of St. Paul's The lord mayor's show ; SSonnetto Vauxhall The workhouse clock : an allegory
Letitia Elizabeth Landon Scenes in London : Piccadilly
Winthrop Mackworth Praed Goodnight to the season
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Aurora Leigh
Alfred, Lord Tennyson In memoriam ; from Ode on the death of duke of Wellington Cleopatra's needle
Anon. (1851) Have you been to the crystal palace?
Robert Browning Waring
Edward Lear There was an old person of Putney ; There was an old man of Blackheath ; There was a young person of Kew ; There was an old person of Bow ; There was a young lady of Greenwich ; There was an old person of Ealing ; There was an old person of Bromley ; There was an old person of Sheen ; There was an old man of Thames Ditton
Arthur Hugh Clogh To the great metropolis ; In the great metropolis ; "Blessed are those who have not seen" ; "Ye flags of Piccadilly"


Anon. (19th century) The cries of London
George Eliot In a London drawingroom
Anon. (1869) Strike of the London Cabmen
Frederick Locker-Lampson St. James's street
Matthew Arnold Lines written in Kensington gardens ; West London ; East London
Dante Gabriel Rosetti Tiber, Nile, and Thames
Coventry Patmore A London fête
James Thomson Sunday at Hampstead
Henry S. Leigh A Cockney's evening song
Anon. (1893) Bloomsbury
Austin Dobson A new song of the spring garden
Thomas Hardy Beyond the last lamp ; The coronation ; In the British museum In St. Paul's a while ago Coming up Oxford street : evening A refusal To a tree in London Christmas in the Elgin room
W. H. Hudson To a London sparrow
Robert Bridges London snow Trafalgar square
W. E. Henley London voluntaries ; from London types
Oscar Wilde Impression du matin
John Davidson London Thirty bob a week In the isle of dogs Fog ; from The Thames embankment
A. E. Housman "From the wash the laundress sends"
Mary E. Coleridge In London town
Amy Levy A March day in London Straw in the street
Rudyard Kipling In partibus The river's tale London snow The craftsman ; from Epitaphs of the war
Arthur Symons London nights ; from Décor de théâtre ; London
W. B. Yeats Vacillation
Lionel Johnson London town By the statue of King Charles at Charing Cross
Charlotte Mew In Nunhead cemetery
Laurence Binyon As I walked through London
T. E. Hulme The embankment
Ezra Pound Portrait d'une femme The garden Simulacra ; from Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
D. H. Lawrence Flat suburbs, S. W., in the morning ; from Guards Bombardment Hyde park at night, before the war Embankment at night, before the war Town in 1917
Frances Cornford London streets Parting in wartime


Siegfried Sassoon Monody on the demolition of Devonshire house
T. S. Eliot The waste land ; from Sweeney Agonistes ; from Four quartets
Isaac Rosenberg Fleet street
Richard Aldington St. Mary's, Kensington In the tube Hampstead heath Whitechapel Eros and Psyche
Wilfred Owen "I am the ghost of Shadwell stair"
Sylvia Townsend Warner Song from the bride of Smithfield East London cemetery
John Rodker The shop The searchlight
Robert Graves Armistice Day, 1918
A. S. J. Tessimond Tube station ; London Summer night at Hyde park corner Autumn The city : midday nocturne
Stevie Smith Suburb
William Empson Homage to the British museum
John Betjeman The arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan hotel In Westminster abbey Parliament hill fields St. Saviour's, Aberdeen park, Highbury, London, N. The metropolitan railway Business girls N.W.5 & N.6 ; from Summoned by bells
Louis MacNeice Autumn journal The British museum reading room Goodbye to London Charon
Stephen Spender Hampstead autumn Epilogue to a human drama
Bernard Spencer Regent's park terrace Train to work
Mervyn Peake London buses
Kenneth Allott Memento mori
Roy Fuller First winter of war Battersea : after Dunkirk, June 3, 1940 London air-raid, 1940


Anne Ridler Wentworth place : Keats grove
George Barker Kew gardens
Alun Lewis Westminster abbey
Robert Lowell Redcliffe square ; from Winter and London
Nicholas Moore Monmouth street
John Heath-Stubbs Lonton architecture 1960s Lament for the "old swan," Notting hill gate
W. S. Graham The night city
Muriel Spark A tour of London
Keith Douglas The "bête noire" fragments
D. J. Enright The stations of King's cross
Philip Larkin Deceptions Naturally the foundation will bear your expenses
Donald Davie To Londoners
Dannie Abse Street scene Soho : Saturday night
James Berry Two black labourers on a London building site Beginning in a city, 1948
John Ashbery The tower of London
Thom Gunn Autobiography Talbot road
Connie Bensley Vauxhall Bottleneck
Peter Porter Thomas Hardy at Westbourne park villas
U. A. Fanthorpe Rising damp Widening the Westway
Ted Hughes Fate playing Epiphany
Derek Walcott Omeros
Alan Brownjohn A202
Ruth Fainlight The same power
Geoffrey Hill Churchill's funeral To the high court of parliament
Sylvia Plath Parliament hill fields


Anne Stevenson Cashpoint Charlie
Fleur Adcock Miss Hamilton in London Londoner To Marilyn from London
John Fuller London songs ; from The shires
Ken Smith The London poems
Seamus Heaney The underground District and circle
Lee Harwood Rain journal : London : June 65
Grey Gowrie Outside Biba's
Joseph Brodsky In England
Derek Mahon Sunday Morning
Hugo Williams Tavistock square Bar Italia Bar Italia [sic] Notting hill
Iain Sinclair Bunhill fields Hurricane drummers : self-aid in Haggerston
Mimi Khalvati Earls court
Carol Rumens Pleasure island, marble arch
Wendy Cope Lonely hearts After the lunch
Peter Reading Perduta gente
Christopher Reid North London sonnet Exasperated piety
Gillian Allnutt Museum, 19 Princelet street, Spitalfields
John Agard Toussaint L'Ouverture acknowledges Wordsworth's Sonnet "To Toussaint L'Ouverture" Chilling out beside the Thames
Grace Nichols Island man
Charles Boyle The miracle at Shepherd's bush
Andrew Motion London plane
Linton Kwesi Johnson Sonny's Lettah
Jo Shapcott St. Bride's
Michael Donaghy The river glideth of his own sweet will ; Poem on the underground


Jeremy Reed Quentin Crisp as prime minister ; from Sainthood : elegies for Derek Jarman
John Stammers John Keats walks home following a night spent reading ; Homer with Cowden Clarke
Carol Ann Duffy Woman seated in the underground, 1941
Alan Jenkins The London dissector
Jamie McKendrick Occupations of Bridewell ; Penal architecture ; The deadhouse
Mick Imlah Cockney
Sarah Maguire Almost the equinox
Michael Hofmann kensal rise to heaven From A to B and back again ; Malvern road
Maura Dooley Smash the windows
David Kennedy The bombs, July 2005
Fred d'Aguiar Home
Lavinia Greenlaw River history
Glyn Maxwell The fires by the river
KX
Alice Oswald Another Westminster bridge
Daljit Nagra Yobbos!
Nick Laird The tip
Heather Phillipson German phenomenology makes me want to strip and run through north London
Ben Borek Donjong heights
Tom Chivers Big skies over docklands
Ahren Warner "Girl with ridiculous earrings"