New York at Night
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near horizon whose sharp jagsCut brutally into a skyOf leaden heaviness, and cragsOf houses lift their masonryUgly and foul, and chimneys lieAnd snort, outlined against the grayOf lowhung cloud. I hear the sighThe goaded city gives, not dayNor night can ease her heart, her anguished labours stay. Below, straight streets, monotonous,From north and south, from east and west,Stretch glittering; and luminousAbove, one tower tops the restAnd holds aloft man's constant quest:Time! Joyless emblem of the greedOf millions, robber of the bestWhich earth can give, the vulgar creedHas seared upon the night its flaming ruthless screed. O Night! Whose soothing presence bringsThe quiet shining of the stars.O Night! Whose cloak of darkness clingsSo intimately close that scarsAre hid from our own eyes. BeggarsBy day, our wealth is having nightTo burn our souls before altarsDim and tree-shadowed, where the lightIs shed from a young moon, mysteriously bright. Where art thou hiding, where thy peace?This is the hour, but thou art not.Will waking tumult never cease?Hast thou thy votary forgot?Nature forsakes this man-begotAnd festering wilderness, and nowThe long still hours are here, no jotOf dear communing do I know;Instead the glaring, man-filled city groans below! A Fairy Tale On winter nights beside the nursery fireWe read the fairy tale, while glowing coalsBuilded its pictures. There before our eyesWe saw the vaulted hall of traceried stoneUprear itself, the distant ceiling hungWith pendent stalactites like frozen vines;And all along the walls at intervals,Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,And ramped and were confined, and clustered leavesDivided where there peered a laughing face.The foliage seemed to rustle in the wind,A silent murmur, carved in still, gray stone.High pointed windows pierced the southern wallWhence proud escutcheons flung prismatic firesTo stain the tessellated marble floorWith pools of red, and quivering green, and blue;And in the shade beyond the further door,Its sober squares of black and white were hidBeneath a restless, shuffling, wide-eyed mobOf lackeys and retainers come to viewThe Christening.A sudden blare of trumpets, and the throngAbout the entrance parted as the guestsFiled singly in with rare and precious gifts.Our eager fancies noted all they brought,The glorious, unattainable delights!But always there was one unbidden guestWho cursed the child and left it bitterness. The fire falls asunder, all is changed,I am no more a child, and what I seeIs not a fairy tale, but life, my life.The gifts are there, the many pleasant things:Health, wealth, long-settled friendships, with a nameWhich honors all who bear it, and the powerOf making words obedient. This is much;But overshadowing all is still the curse,That never shall I be fulfilled by love!Along the parching highroad of the worldNo other soul shall bear mine company.Always shall I be teased with semblances,With cruel impostures, which I trust awhileThen dash to pieces, as a careless boyFlings a kaleidoscope, which shatteringStrews all the ground about with coloured sherds.So I behold my visions on the groundNo longer radiant, an ignoble heapOf broken, dusty glass. And so, unlit,Even by hope or faith, my dragging stepsForce me forever through the passing days.
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