Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is in his novels more a poet and a dramatist than a novelist, a writer friend tells me. As I read Dombey and Son, I reflect on what my friend says and come to see what he means.https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2025/12/13/a-life-enhancing-novel-in-which-pride-comes-before-resounding-crashes/ There are many passages in the book where Dickens writes passage that can be read like poems. And his novel tens to jolt forward through powerful scenes filled with drama and rich dialogue.

Dickens did write poems that were intended as poems, but there might well be better poems lurking in his novels. I’ve selected three “poems” from Dombey and Son, the last of which has just a touch of T S Eliot.

Train journey 1840 by Charles Dickens

Breasting the wind and light, the shower and sunshine,

Away, and still away, it rolls and roars,

Fierce and rapid, smooth and certain,

And great works and massive bridges crossing up above,

Fall like a beam of shadow an inch broad upon the eye,

And then are lost.

Away, and still away, onward and onward ever:

Glimpses of cottage-homes, of houses, mansions, rich estates,

Of husbandry and handicraft, of people,

Of old roads and paths that look deserted,

Small, and insignificant as they are left behind:

And so they do, and what else is there but such glimpses,

In the track of the indomitable monster, Death!

Night by the sea by Charles Dickens

All is going on as it was wont.

The waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery;

The dust lies piled upon the shore;

The sea-birds soar and hover;

The winds and clouds go forth upon their trackless flight;

The white arms beckon, in the moonlight,

To the invisible country far away.

Our journey’s end is but our starting-place by Charles Dickens

In this round world of many circles within circles,

Do we make a weary journey from the high grade to the low,

To find at last that they lie close together,

That the two extremes touch,

And that our journey’s end is but our starting-place?