Oscar Wilde

"Impression du Matin"
  By: Oscar Wilde

The Thames nocturne of blue and gold
Changed to a Harmony in grey:
A barge with ochre-coloured hay
Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold

The yellow fog came creeping down
The bridges, till the houses' walls
Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul's
Loomed like a bubble o'er the town.

Then suddenly arose the clang
Of waking life; the streets were stirred
With country waggons: and a bird
Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.

But one pale woman all alone,
The daylight kissing her wan hair,
Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare,
With lips of flame and heart of stone.

Oscar Wilde is in the group of poets classified as "The Symbolists" and he lived from 1854-1900. Poems from this time period seem "obscure" at first but actually contain these super deep symbols (woah aren't the people that named this group of poets creative....). Also they tend to deal with aesthetics and the concept of time, especially from wake up to when you go to sleep. 

The aesthetics are present in this poem with phrases such as "The Thames nocturne of blue and gold" which references a work of the artist, Whistler. Also there are many colour associations and a lot of sensory detail and imagery with the way it describes the town scene. The poem mentions the sun rising to the bustling town so that idea of time is very present within this work. 

Honestly I have sat at the computer trying to figure out the deep meaning of this poem and I haven't been able to do so. It is evident that there is a rhyme scheme that creates a structure to the poem, and its in standard iambic tetrameter. Each stanza of the poem seems to be from a different viewpoint within the scene, and it ends with the most intimate of just the isolated woman. Maybe its something about how everyone goes through their day differently but its within the same time frame (I totally just guessed so there isn't much support online for this or anything). I got this from the fact that there is the fog that is creating shadows over the city, and then there is the busy streets v. the single woman.........? So pretty much this poem very directly relates to the poems of this time, but I don't know what the deep symbols are.