Here’s another poem that I found by accident when looking for something else.
Henry Luttrell (1765–1851) is not exactly one of the great names of English poetry. A little research reveals that he began his career as a politician and became a well-known figure in London society, renowned for his wit. He was a writer of satirical verse.
I have not been able to find out exactly when The November Fog of London was written. The rhyming couplet style belongs to the eighteenth century, but the reference to industrial pollution perhaps indicates a slightly later period, although it’s not clear if Luttrell realised that the yellow fog and the smoke were connected.
At any rate, it belongs to the early industrial age and this evocative poem describes an earlier manifestation of what became known as “smog” in the 1950s. By then, the cause was fully understood.
Is it any wonder that one of the nicknames for London used to be “the smoke”?
The November Fog of London by Henry Luttrell
First, at the dawn of lingering day,
It rises of an ashy gray;
Then deepening with a sordid stain
Of yellow, like a lion’s mane.
Vapour importunate and dense
It wars at once with every sense.
The ears escape not. All around
Returns a dull, unwonted sound.
Loath to stand still, afraid to stir,
The chilled and puzzled passenger,
Oft blundering from the pavement, fails
To feel his way along the rails;
Or at the crossings, in the roll
Of every carriage dreads the pole.
Scarce an eclipse with pall so dun
Blots from the face of heaven the sun.
But soon a thicker, darker cloak
Wraps all the town; behold the smoke,
Which steam-compelling trade disgorges
From all her furnaces and forges
In pitchy clouds, too dense to rise,
Descends rejected from the skies;
Till struggling day, extinguished quite,
At noon gives place to candle-light.
The Good Reader 