Poems I Like: Nelson Street by Suemas O'Sullivan (1912)

I've decided to separate my poetry posting into three categories: my own poems, my favourite poems, and poems that I like but that I wouldn't call "favourite".

As the eagle-eyed will have noticed, this is one of the latter. I came across it in an anthology of Irish poetry many, many years ago. Other than that, I know nothing of Seumas O'Sullivan.

But I really like this poem and it often comes into my head, especially since it captures the atmosphere of "the morning after the night before". (I love that phrase; like most clichés, it's a little poem in itself.)

I like this poem for several reasons:

1) Its sheer virtuosity. This, in my view, is the element of poetry that is most neglected in the modern world. Can the poet handle formal verse? Does it read awkwardly and incongruously, or smoothly and naturally? Elegance is its own beauty, whether it's a brilliantly-plotted farce that all comes together (or falls apart) in the last scene, a pirouette on an ice-rink, or a masterful handling of the rigours of rhyme and metre, as in this case.

2) The title "Nelson Street". Apparently this is in Phibsborough, a suburb of Dublin. I love titles that are place names, especially place names of smaller places-- such as streets. "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty is one of my favourite songs. This is a form of enchantment. It throws a glow over the place, whether it's a celebration or the opposite.

3) As I said previously, I love the atmosphere, particularly the "morning after the night before" atmosphere. I love drawn curtains, lowered blinds, and dark morning kitchens-- especially a morning of seclusion after a night of sociability. I love "in between" times. Admittedly, the atmosphere the poet is invoking in this poem doesn't seem intended to be particularly cosy or pleasant. But I still like it.

4) Ending the poem on the title of another work is a nice touch. 

 Nelson Street by Seumas O'Sullivan

There is hardly a mouthful of air
In the room where the breakfast is set,
For the blind is still down though it’s late,
And the curtains are redolent yet
Of tobacco smoke, stale from last night.
There’s the little bronze teapot, and there
The eggs on the blue willow-plate,
And the sleepy canary, a hen,
Starts faintly her chirruping tweet
And I know, could she speak, she would say,
“Hullo there, what’s wrong with the light?
Draw the blind up, let’s look at the day.”
I see that it’s Monday again,
For the man with the organ is there;
Every Monday he comes to the street
(Lest I, or the bird there, should miss
Our count of monotonous days)
With his reed-organ, wheezy and sweet,
And stands by the window and plays
“There’s a Land that is Fairer than This.”