Sun-girt city, thou hast been Ocean's child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'Lines written amongst the Euganean Hills', l.115^18.

The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'StanzasWritten in Dejection, near Naples'.

Hell is a city much like Londonö A populous and smoky city.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'Peter Bell theThird'pt.3, stanza1.

This rortie wretched city Sair come down frae its auld hiechts öThe hauf o't smug, complacent, Lost til all pride of race or spirit, The tither wild and rouch as ever In its secret hairt But lost alsweill, the smeddum tane, The man o'independent mind has cap in hand the day öSits on its craggy spine And drees the wind and rain That nourished all its genius öWeary wi centuries This empty capital snorts like a great beast Caged in its sleep, dreaming of freedom.

-Smith, Sydney Goodsir
  Of Edinburgh.'Kynd Kittock's Land' (Kynd Kittock is a character in the poetry of the16c Scottish poetWilliam Dunbar.) rortie=splendid, smeddum=spirit, drees=endures.

One must obey the man whom the city sets up in power in small things and in justice and in its opposite.

-Sophocles
Creon speaking. Antigone, 666^7 (translated by H Lloyd-Jones, 1994).

I saw rain falling and the rainbow drawn On Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard again In my precipitous city beaten bells Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar, Intent on my own race and place, I wrote.

-Stevenson, Robert Louis
  Weir of Hermiston (published1896), Dedication'To My Wife'.

The city is built To music, therefore never built at all, And therefore built for ever.

-Tennyson
  Idylls of the King,'Gareth and Lynette',1.272^4.

Darkness came down on the field and city: and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart.

-Thackeray,William Makepeace
^8  Vanity Fair, ch.32.

The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death.

-Thomas, Dylan Marlais
  'The HandThat Signed the Paper Felled a City'.

The City is of Night, but not of Sleep; There sweet Sleep is not for the weary brain; The pitiless hours like years and ages creep, A night seems termless hell.

-Thomson,James pseudonym 'BV',ByssheVanolis
  The City of Dreadful Night, pt.1.

The City is of Night; perchance of Death, But certainly of Night.

-Thomson,James pseudonym 'BV',ByssheVanolis
  The City of Dreadful Night, pt.1.

A good many inconveniences attend play-going in any large city, but the greatest of them is usually the play itself.

-Tynan, Kenneth
  In the NewYork HeraldTribune.

Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze, Avisitant that while it fans my cheek Doth seem half conscious of the joy it brings From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come To none more grateful than to me; escaped From the vast city, where I long had pined A discontented sojourner: now free, Free as a bird to settle where I will.

-Wordsworth,William
^1805  The Prelude, bk.1, l.1^9 (published1850).

Earth hath not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will; Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

-Wordsworth,William
  Of London.'Composed uponWestminster Bridge', complete poem. (Published1807).