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WALKING DOWN BRISTOL STREET?

P

PAUL ELLISON HUNTER

New Member
I had been in contact with Solihull Local Studies regarding Auden’s association with Solihull and the particular investigation below. They have recommended me to contact you, so here is my query.
One particular interest of mine is the poem “As I walked out one evening”. Trying to trace the route just brought confusion. Was he walking towards Birmingham centre or any from it? Where was the railway arch - as far as I know, there’s no railway that crossed Bristol Street and never was? Maybe in Digbeth. If the “brimming river” is the Rea, it crosses Bristol Road well to the south of the city and then parallels it. I notice that, late in the evening, Auden returns to the river, notices the clocks have stopped chiming and the lovers are gone - but the railway arch gets no second mention…
Maunderings of a septuagenarian. But please do let me know anything that you can.
Best wishes (from Sheffield).
David Stead
 
Welcome to the Forum, David. And thanks for the interesting question. I'm confident it will spark off thoughts amongst members. Here's Auden's 1937 work in full:

As I walked out one evening
Walking down Bristol Street
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat

And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway
Love has no ending

I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet
And the river jumps they over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street

I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky

The years shall run like rabbits
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages
And the first love of the world

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime
O let not Time deceive you
You cannot conquer time

'In the burrows of the nightmare
Where Justice naked is
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow

'O plunge your hands in water
Plunge them in up to the wrist
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed

The glacier knocks in the cupboard
The desert sighs in the bed
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead

Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer
And Jill goes down on her back

O look, look in the mirror
O look in your distress
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless

O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart

It was late, late in the evening
The lovers, they were gone
The clocks had ceased their chiming
And the deep river ran on

Chris
 
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Cannot think of any place that truely fits , unless it is by Hawkelsey Mill Lane, off Bristol road South, where the lane crosses the Rea by a ford and shortly after goes under a rail bridge. Not the sort of arches that one would expect a lover to frequent
 
Thanks for all these Replies. The suggestion that the lovers are dead before the poem is over seemed especially poignant.
I became interested in Auden, almost by chance, in 2007, trying at times to write "answering back" type poems. The Jack-and-Jill sequence was particularly perplexing - the way I eventually thought to resolve it was by writing a "Three Septembers" or "All three Septembers" piece which combined themes from "Walking down Bristol Street" and "September 1st, 1939".
Digbeth had intrigued me because of the viaduct there which was apparently never used...
But once again, thanks to you all. And I'll keep reading from this Forum - more having come in while I was writing this.
Hasta la vista!
David
 
Would it make more sense if the poem was set in Oxford where he went to University? - If you walk west out of the city there, you come to a railway arch and then almost straight away to the River Thames, (all within hearing distance of the city church bells) - Along the Botley Road which goes to BRISTOL.
Just a thought.
 
Thanks for your Replies.


Following them up produced this detail, from the Oxford CS Lewis Society. “As a walker, Auden was said to take no notice of his surroundings. In his student days, his favourite walk in Oxford was reportedly past the gasworks, along 'the dingiest part of the river towpath' —this, to him, was beauty—though on the whole he wasn't much for walking at all”. Then there was the poem, “Oxford”, perhaps reflecting his disillusion from the Spanish Civil War.


His interest in the omnipresent history in industrial archaeology is reflected in “Letter to Lod Byron” and details in that cutting from the “Birmingham Gazette” chime in well with new information about the St Ebbe’s gasworks: https://southoxfordhistory.org.uk/i...and-south-oxford-s-history/st-ebbe-s-gasworks


Shades of Shadowlands, then, and of Brideshead… Vienna would have always evoked Leonard Cohen’s waltz, but “Before Sunset” now offers even more perspectives.


Best wishes!


David
 
PAUL ELLISON HUNTER said:
I had been in contact with Solihull Local Studies regarding Auden’s association with Solihull and the particular investigation below. They have recommended me to contact you, so here is my query.
One particular interest of mine is the poem “As I walked out one evening”. Trying to trace the route just brought confusion. Was he walking towards Birmingham centre or any from it? Where was the railway arch - as far as I know, there’s no railway that crossed Bristol Street and never was? Maybe in Digbeth. If the “brimming river” is the Rea, it crosses Bristol Road well to the south of the city and then parallels it. I notice that, late in the evening, Auden returns to the river, notices the clocks have stopped chiming and the lovers are gone - but the railway arch gets no second mention…
Maunderings of a septuagenarian. But please do let me know anything that you can.
Best wishes (from Sheffield).
David Stead
Click to expand...
A resume of the poem. Make of it what you will, but I do not think it references a Birmingham you would recognize but one that could inspire someone whilst walking along a very busy road - presumably Bristol Street.
 
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