Classic Poem

A lonely girl sat in a far, high room,
The while below her, like a giant flower,
The city broke in blossom, light by light,
Until, upon this thin branch of the world,
It flaunted its wild yellow and its gold.
She heard the thunder of ten thousand hoofs,
The clang of cars, the bells and motor horns,
The rumble of the Elevated road,
The distant clamor of an ambulance
As swift upon its errand desperate
It fought its way across a crowded street;
She saw the myriad honeycombs of light,
From towers and high hotels; and far away
The eyes of ferryboats that crawled like worms
Through the deep darkness on their changeless course;
And on the far-off shore beyond the town
She saw the faint, sweet lights of little homes
Where waited many a wife and many a child
For the glad coming of the one whose voice
Would crown with rapture the long, tired day.
Far, far below her, in the surging stream,
She saw, through tears, hosts of young lovers take
Their happy way along the thoroughfares;
And she could picture, though she could not see,
The laughter in their eyes and on their lips;
And she could guess the wonder in their hearts
As on they swept, like dust upon the flowers
Of the great City's magical bouquet.

Who thought of her, and many like her there,
Lost in the curious system of hotels?—
A quiet guest whom no one seemed to know,
A gentle girl who went her simple way,
Said her “Good-morning” to the passive clerks,
And spent her hours in tragic solitude;
Asked for her slender mail at eight o'clock,
Did her poor scribbling when the mood was on,
And watched the bright procession of the town
When work was not insistent. Day by day,
So went her ordered life. She could endure
The loneliness when all the world was bright
With sunshine, and she had no time to brood
On the green slopes from whence her feet had come,
But O the nights!—the flowering nights of pain,
The lamps of joy that trembled in the streets
And threw their bright reflections in her face,
And mocked her when she sat in solitude
In her dim window, awful night on night!…
A lonely girl sat in a far, high room.
Alone—yet not alone
In this wild whirl and blur;
How vacantly the stone
Stares up at her!
Alone!—but in her heart
Echoes of others' mirth;
Close, close, yet far apart,
O ancient earth!
Alone—with Love so near,
Yet leagues and leagues away;
No wonder that men here
Forget to pray!
Alone! No distance makes
Such solitude as this;
While her heart bleeds and breaks,
Hearken—a kiss!

A lonely man, whose days grew lonelier still,
Fought Life upon the City's battleground,
And turned each sundown to a quiet room,
Where no one waited when his footsteps fell
Along his hotel's echoing corridor.
The Subway, that live worm beneath the ground,
Whirled him at evening to the place he called
His “home”—an empty name that chilled his heart.
The glittering halls that feigned to welcome him,
Killed the last hope of hospitality
By their aggressive grandeur; the paid smiles
Of servile bell-boys irritated him,
And the absurd politeness of the clerks
Seemed but a mockery in this fatuous world.
He was a number—not a name—to them;
He had a room on such and such a floor,
A key that corresponded with the box
Wherein they put his letters—few enough.
He might have died, and little they would care;
He might go out and not come back again.
They'd miss him? Yes, an hour or so, perhaps,
And then, with clock-like regularity,
The wheels of the establishment would turn,
And turn, and turn; and he, who formed one cog
In the machinery so deftly oiled,
Would have his place refilled, and—that was all.

One night he saw her in the hall; her eyes
Were young, yet tired, like his; she haunted him,
And all next day, at his hot desk downtown,
He thought of her—that lonely girl whose face
Seemed beautiful and gentle; and he thought
How he would like to have her for his friend.
Yet, if he spoke, he felt she might resent
His brief “Good-evening,” and refuse to take
His honest courtesy at its true worth.
Thus, often did he pass her silently. …
He learned to watch for her. The weeks went by,
The fleeting months, and though he sometimes saw
Her fragile figure in the dining-room
Or in the hall, he dared not speak to her,
Nor she, of course, to him. … Two hungry hearts,
Each aching with a nameless emptiness;
Two souls whose very silence must have said
More than a world of speech, a world of tears,
Yet destined to go on their separate ways. …
So sped the years for her; and so for him—
A lonely man whose days grew lonelier still.