25 January 2008

Where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infreuent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours,
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land

This morning I got up early and took the tube down to the London Bridge station and flowed with the commuters over the London bridge, and up the hill and down King William Street, in order that I might here the bells of Saint Mary Woolnoth. I was rather upset to find out that the bells no longer ring at 9 am. I'll never be able to find out if the really sound dead on the final stroke of nine now. I can believe that they did though. The start of the work day can be rather deadening.

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