Jessica Nelson North. Bogie. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

Bogie

By Jessica Nelson North


From “At Night” THE BLACK rain settles in our empty block.
The drunken street-lamps leer with sidelong eyes,
Dim and unholy.
Old newspapers, grown restless in the gutter,
With flap and flutter	5
Rise and subside and rise.
It is half-past-twelve-o’clock,
The night—goes—slowly.

I am awake again. I cannot sleep.
I light the lamp again, and draw the shutter.	10
I light the lamp against the feet that creep,
The sounds that mutter.
I draw the shutter against the lids that peep.

Something goes crouching at the dripping flank
Of the broken wall! Something in tatters slips	15
Down alleys dank!
Something from door to door before the rain
Dodges and whines! Something with twisting lips
Terribly smiles outside my shuttered pane!