Monday
Jul052010
Post-Apocalyptic Poetry - The Last Man by Thomas Wood from 1824
Monday, July 5, 2010 at 9:55AM
I came across another early poem with a "modern" post-apocalyptic feel to it, The Last Man by Thomas Hood from 1824.
Mary Shelley's novel of the same name was published two years later, and was apparently influenced by Wood's poem, which also told of a lone survivor after a plague had ravaged the population.
The first stanza is below, with the rest after the break.
'Twas in the year two thousand and one,
A pleasant morning of May
I sat on the gallows-tree, all alone,
A chaunting a merry lay,--
To think how the pest had spared my life,
To sing, with the larks that day!
Mary Shelley's novel of the same name was published two years later, and was apparently influenced by Wood's poem, which also told of a lone survivor after a plague had ravaged the population.
The first stanza is below, with the rest after the break.
'Twas in the year two thousand and one,
A pleasant morning of May
I sat on the gallows-tree, all alone,
A chaunting a merry lay,--
To think how the pest had spared my life,
To sing, with the larks that day!
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