Songs of Doubt and Dream (Poems) | ||
90
[IX. I feel the huge dim city round me lie]
I feel the huge dim city round me lie,
Still drugged with sleep below the whitening sky.
Still drugged with sleep below the whitening sky.
Now sounds the sluggish roll of distant wheels;
Now falls the unsteady step of one who reels.
Now falls the unsteady step of one who reels.
For year by year, in strange weird trysts like these,
Meet toil and vice, the intense antitheses.
Meet toil and vice, the intense antitheses.
But save for such chance noise amid the air,
A deathly and solemn calm is everywhere.
A deathly and solemn calm is everywhere.
Deep in my soul, this ghostly dawn that springs
Fresh from eternity, speaks awful things!
Fresh from eternity, speaks awful things!
Here to my side she seems, with spectral dress,
To steal like some pale mighty prophetess,
To steal like some pale mighty prophetess,
And tell me in some vague mysterious way
How o'er the shadowy roofs the speeding day
How o'er the shadowy roofs the speeding day
Inexorably bears within its breath
New joy, despair, sin, anguish, birth and death!
New joy, despair, sin, anguish, birth and death!
Songs of Doubt and Dream (Poems) | ||