The speaker watches a city bridge by day, where everything is dust and motion—feet, wheels, wagons passing without pause. Then the scene empties into night. Only stars and mist remain, along with a lonely policeman and two cabaret dancers, before stars and mist close in again. The daytime dust and traffic are gone.
What lingers is human feeling. The city seems to speak in voices of dollars, blood, and broken hearts, but also in singing—silver voices softer than the stars and mist. The mood is quiet and haunting, mixing loneliness, weariness, and strange tenderness. Sandburg hears both the cost of city life and its fragile, fading beauty.