I



The winter evening settles down



With smell of steaks in passageways.



Six o’clock.



The burnt-out ends of smoky days.



And now a gusty shower wraps



The grimy scraps



Of withered leaves about your feet



And newspapers from vacant lots;



The showers beat



On broken blinds and chimney-pots,



And at the corner of the street



A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.







And then the lighting of the lamps.







II



The morning comes to consciousness



Of faint stale smells of beer



From the sawdust-trampled street



With all its muddy feet that press



To early coffee-stands.



With the other masquerades



That time resumes,



One thinks of all the hands



That are raising dingy shades



In a thousand furnished rooms.







III



You tossed a blanket from the bed,



You lay upon your back, and waited;



You dozed, and watched the night revealing



The thousand sordid images



Of which your soul was constituted;



They flickered against the ceiling.



And when all the world came back



And the light crept up between the shutters



And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,



You had such a vision of the street



As the street hardly understands;



Sitting along the bed’s edge, where



You curled the papers from your hair,



Or clasped the yellow soles of feet



In the palms of both soiled hands.







IV



His soul stretched tight across the skies



That fade behind a city block,



Or trampled by insistent feet



At four and five and six o’clock;



And short square fingers stuffing pipes,



And evening newspapers, and eyes



Assured of certain certainties,



The conscience of a blackened street



Impatient to assume the world.







I am moved by fancies that are curled



Around these images, and cling:



The notion of some infinitely gentle



Infinitely suffering thing.







Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;



The worlds revolve like ancient women



Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

