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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NIGHT IN NEW YORK, by GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP Poet's Biography First Line: Haunted by unknown feet Last Line: And behold, it is day! Subject(s): New York City; Night; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple; Bedtime | |||
Haunted by unknown feet— Ways of the midnight hour! Strangely you murmur below me, Strange is your half-silent power. Places of life and of death, Numbered and named as streets, What, through your channels of stone, Is the tide that unweariedly beats? A whisper, a sigh-laden breath, Is all that I hear of its flowing, Footsteps of stranger and foe— Footsteps of friends, could we meet them— Alike to me in my sorrow; Alike to a life left alone. Yet swift as my heart they throb, They fall thick as tears on the stone: My spirit perchance may borrow New strength from their eager tone. Still ever that slip and slide Of the feet that shuffle or glide, And linger or haste through the populous waste Of the shadowy, dim-lit square! And I know not, from the sound, As I sit and ponder within, The goal to which those steps are bound,— On hest of mercy, or hest of sin, Or joy's short-measured round; Yet a meaning deeper they bear In their vaguely muffled din. Roar of the multitude, Chafe of the million-crowd, To this you are all subdued In the murmurous, sad night-air! Yet whether you thunder aloud, Or hush your tone to a prayer, You chant amain through the modern maze The only epic of our days. Still as death are the places of life; The city seems crumbled and gone, Sunk 'mid invisible deeps— The city so lately rife With the stir of brain and brawn. Haply it only sleeps; But what if indeed it were dead, And another earth should arise To greet the grey of the dawn? Faint then our epic would wall To those who should come in our stead. But what if the earth were ours? What if, with holier eyes, We should meet the new hope, and not fail? Weary the night grows pale: With a blush as of opening flowers Dimly the East shines red. Can it be that the morn shall fulfil My dream, and refashion our clay As the poet may fashion his rhyme? Hark to that mingled scream Rising from workshop and mill— Hailing some marvellous sight; Mighty breath of the hours, Poured through the trumpets of steam; Awful tornado of time, Blowing us whither it will! God has breathed in the nostrils of night, And behold, it is day! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BREATH OF NIGHT by RANDALL JARRELL HOODED NIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP by ROBINSON JEFFERS WORKING OUTSIDE AT NIGHT by DENIS JOHNSON POEM TO TAKE BACK THE NIGHT by JUNE JORDAN COOL DARK ODE by DONALD JUSTICE POEM TO BE READ AT 3 A.M by DONALD JUSTICE ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT by BOB KAUFMAN KEENAN'S CHARGE by GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP MARTHY VIRGINIA'S HAND [SEPTEMBER 17, 1862] by GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP |
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