Classic Poem

At the edge of a beautiful gulf of gloom and stillness,
The city rises:
Glittering with thousands of spangles
Seen between the dull smoke of the trains
That leap out shoreward,
Or bump empty freight-cars into each other,
With a noise like surf collapsing.

One or two lights low down
Seemingly blurred by mist,
The grey outline of dunes beyond,
And watery stars.
For the wind is bringing rain
To stream down the spangled house-fronts,
To make the lights of the city run together,
Growing more dim.

At the edge of a beautiful gulf of gloom and stillness
The city rises:
And behind her painted mask
She frowns a little, growing more weary,
Yet shedding abroad to the night
The glow of a thousand spangles,
Her glory, where winds will whirl it
Through dry blades of grass on the dunes.

February, 1915