Morning, Noon, Night

The idealised English cottage scenes in Morning, Noon and Night were painted the same year that saw the end of the French Revolution (1789-99), not that long after the American Revolution (1763-83). Britain was at war with France (1793-1815); in conflict with with Ireland (1798); and Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, fearing insurrection, was accused of his own “reign of terror” at home, cracking down on whispers of government or societal reform.

Meantime, in arts and literature, neoclassicism dominated, and the romantic movement, which idealised nature and peasant life, among other things, began to emerge.

Francis Wheatley lived through a few romantic and monetary upheavals himself. However, he was best known for his portraits and landscapes, and his prints of street scenes and “rustic subjects” such as vendors and milkmaids. More of his works here.

The central woman in Morning, Noon, and Night looks very similar to me to the woman in some of his other works, said to possibly be his second wife Clara Maria Leigh.

Francis Wheatley, Morning, 1799. Oil on canvas. Image in the public domain: Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Francis Wheatley, *Noon*, 1799. Oil on canvas. Image in the public domain. Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Francis Wheatley, Night, 1799. Oil on canvas. Image in the public domain. Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

dash butter
churn, yet you
look to me

gruel beer bread
heat, yet you
look to me

night, child, trapped
yet, you see
future me

©elsp 2026

The form here is a tricube. More of my ekphrastic poetry here. Thinking about a recipe to sit alongside this poem, I thought actually these easy freeze-ahead meals might be most appropriate.

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Morning, Noon, Night – A Poem