Shadwell Stair | Halloween Poems

Summary

In Shadwell Stair, Wilfred Owen adopts the voice of a ghost haunting the eerie London docks at night. Amid slaughterhouses, shadowed alleys, and flickering arc lamps, the speaker drifts along the Thames like a soul displaced. Though corporeal in form, he exists as part of the nocturnal city’s decay, a liminal figure between life and death. The poem blends physical detail with spectral imagery, creating a haunting vision of modern alienation and transience. As dawn breaks and sirens cry, the ghost returns to his rest, joined by another—a cycle of death and silent companionship amid the urban sprawl.

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I am the ghost of Shadwell Stair.
Along the wharves by the water-house,
And through the cavernous slaughter-house,
I am the shadow that walks there.

Yet I have flesh both firm and cool,
And eyes tumultuous as the gems
Of moons and lamps in the full Thames
When dusk sails wavering down the pool.

Shuddering the purple street-arc burns
Where I watch always; from the banks
Dolorously the shipping clanks
And after me a strange tide turns.

I walk till the stars of London wane
And dawn creeps up the Shadwell Stair.
But when the crowing syrens blare
I with another ghost am lain.