This melancholy London. I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Yeats imagines London as haunted by lost souls walking its streets endlessly.
- In plain terms
- He thinks ghosts of lost people walk London.
- What can you take from it?
- Cities hold deep memories.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Does a city remember?
- Where are your ghosts?
Another view
It is a heavy view of a living city.
More from William Butler Yeats
The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.
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