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Kate Susong's avatar

Thanks for introducing me to this poem, Liza! The bait-and-switch of Wilde's imagery -- after the wholesome "waking life" of country waggons coming into the city and a singing bird -- is made more stark by the suggestion that this lonely woman is a prostitute still looking for work. A woman all alone "loitering" as the sun comes up suggests that she's been there through the dark, attracted to "the gas lamps' flare." She is pale and wan, now kissed only by the daylight, though her "lips of flame" have been painted red to attract some life. Her efforts have failed, and she is as good as dead with "a heart of stone" -- the words Ezekiel uses when we are dead in our sins. Ending the poem with that phrase repudiates the promise given by Ezekiel's prophecy when God says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." This is a morning without hope of redemption.

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Stuart Anderson's avatar

Interesting! Wilde's verse style is very conservative (about the only conservative thing about him), but his images are nicely balanced. I especially appreciate the changing of the guard, as the first bird of the morning overlaps with the last lady of the evening. Of course dawn is always a transition, but usually the emphasis is on the night or the day themselves with the transition somewhat muted in emphasis. Here, the transition is in the foreground; the poem is as much about change as about what is changed from and to. It is as if we are catching London, rather two-faced, in the middle of changing expression.

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