Sandburg gives us a six-cornered city intersection as a living, restless place. All day it swallows and spills people, horses, wagons, shoppers, workers, and trolley cars; even the banks and drug stores seem to keep watch. The speaker feels the constant motion almost as a kind of sleeplessness—wheels, feet, whistles, bumps repeating without pause.
Then, in the pale false dawn, the mood softens. Only one milk wagon crosses, the policeman’s star and gun are asleep, and even the owl car drifts by half-dreaming. The speaker seems relieved by this quiet: the intersection finally rests, and the city feels almost tender, tired, and briefly at peace before the next day’s traffic begins.