| |
| THE CITY slowly wakes: | |
| Her every chimney makes | |
| Offering of smoke against the cool white skies. | |
| Slowly the morning shakes | |
| The lingering shadowy flakes | 5 |
| Of night from doors and windows, from the city’s eyes. | |
| |
| A breath through heaven goes: | |
| Leaves of the pale sweet rose | |
| Are strewn along the clouds of upper air. | |
| Healer of ancient woes, | 10 |
| The palm of dawn bestows | |
| Peace on the feverish brow, comfort on grim despair. | |
| |
| Now the celestial fire | |
| Fingers the sunken spire, | |
| Crocket by crocket swiftly creepeth down; | 15 |
| Brushes the maze of wire, | |
| Dewy, electric lyre, | |
| And with a silent hymn one moment fills the town. | |
| |
| A sound of pattering hoofs | |
| Above the emergent roofs | 20 |
| And anxious bleatings tell the passing herd; | |
| Scared by the piteous droves | |
| A shoal of skurrying doves | |
| Veering, around the island of the church has whirred. | |
| |
| Soon through the smoky haze | 25 |
| The park begins to raise | |
| Its outlines clearer into daylit prose; | |
| Ever with fresh amaze | |
| The sleepless fountains praise | |
| Morn that has gilt the city as it gilds the rose. | 30 |
| |
| High in the clear air | |
| The smoke now builds a stair | |
| Leading to realms no wing of bird has found; | |
| Things are more foul, more fair; | |
| A distant clock somewhere | 35 |
| Strikes, and the dreamer starts at clear reverberant sound. | |
| |
| Farther the tide of dark | |
| Drains from each square and park; | |
| Here is a city fresh and new-create, | |
| Wondrous as though the ark | 40 |
| Should once again disbark | |
| On a remoulded world its safe and joyous freight. | |
| |
| Ebbs all the dark, and now | |
| Life eddies to and fro | |
| By pier and alley, street and avenue: | 45 |
| The myriads stir below, | |
| As hives of coral grow— | |
| Vaulted above, like them with a fresh sea of blue. | |
| |
