LONELINESS

Nightmare town,
The streets silent, dark;
Sabbath empty ===>"It is sunday, so that in some countries all the shops are closed and people are at home".
Follow me home;
I walk slowly
And the rain wet stones
Wink under the sodium flares
I hear them snigger ===>"To laugh at stone one in a moching, offensive way".(Personification)
As I bend my head to the rain:
I must have walked this road
This endless road
A thousand years, ===>(Hyperbole)
Yet I never meet a soul,
Even the paper scraps
Draw themselves aside,
The houses draw up
From the dank gardens,
But their prim laces never stir
Oh God is there no one in this town? ===>(Rhetorical Questions*)

Margaret Taylor


Theme: The poem deals with the problem of loneliness, and says explicitly and directly.

The poet is desperate for contact with other people in this nightmare town, yet she never meets anyone. She is walking in the rain and it is dark, as the street lights are on, and it seems to her that everything is against to her; the litter on the payemnt seems, to move away, from her, as though the houses and no one is even interested in spying on her from behind their curtains. The questioning last line sums up her desperation at being alone in crowd. Anyone who has ever felt lonely in a town or city will identify with this poem's sentiments.


*It is a question asked not to seek an answer, but to produce emphasis stronger than a direct statement.