The Triangular Society :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh! tales are told and songs are sung
Of toilers far and near,
The soldier and the fisherman,
The plodding muleteer,
The lumberman with sounding ax
Where northern forests bow,
The sailor on his dizzy ropes,
The farmer at his plough—

But no fond bard has sung the praise
Or marked the weary way
Of him who puts the street-lamps out
Before the dawn of day.

Who knows at what unchristian hour
He leaves his happy sleep?
Or does he stay all night awake
His lonesome tryst to keep?
And does he walk the dismal streets
Without a thought of fear,
Nor dread to meet a prowling foe,
Nor dream of danger near?
And does he do his work for love
Without a thought of pay,
The man who puts the street-lamps out
Before the dawn of day?

They call the midnight hour the time
When cemeteries yawn—
But ah, the fearsome time o' night
Is just before the dawn—
The darkest, coldest, dreariest time,
When half the world is dumb,
When shadows look like spectral shapes,
And thieves and burglars come—
When windows stare like sleepless eyes,
And fogs roll up the bay—
Just when he puts the street-lamps out
Before the dawn of day.

But worse than all the darkest nights
Are those when low and late
The ghostly moon companions him,
And follows like a fate;

She waits at corners till he comes,
Then flits before he knows,
And sends a phantom, black and grim,
To track him where he goes;
I wonder if he dreads her face,
Or likes her pallid ray,
This man who puts the street-lamps out
Before the dawn of day?

The only signs of life he sees
But wear a mournful guise;
Behind each dim-lit pane, he knows
Some sleepless sorrow lies;
Some woman tends a suffering child,
Or bathes a sick man's head,
Or some devoted spirit keeps
Its vigil by the dead—
And hails his footstep as the sign
Of morn's returning ray,
What time he puts the street-lamps out
Before the dawn of day.

I hear him when the inky skies
Pour down their drenching flood,
His boots are noisy on the bricks,
Or silent in the mud;
I hear him in the windy nights
When blinds and windows creak,
I hear him in the winter-time
When storms are wild and bleak—
And yet I never saw the face
(Perhaps no mortal may—)
Of him who puts the street-lamps out
Before the dawn of day.