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Louis Simpson
There are whole blocks in New York
Where no one lives —
A district of small factories.
And there's a hotel; one morning
When I was there with a girl
We saw in the window opposite
Men and women working at their machines.
Now and then one looked up.
Toys, hardware — whatever they made,
It's been worn out.
I'm fifteen years older myself —
Bad years and good.
So I have spoiled my chances.
For what? Sheer laziness,
The thrill of an assignation,
My life that I hold in secret.
Blue dust of evening over my city,
Over the ocean of roofs and the tall towers
Where the window-lights, myriads and myriads,
Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.
Maid of Gotham, ere we part.
Have a hospitable heart —
Since our own delights must end,
Introduce me to your friend.
I made a little song to-day,
And then I wandered down Broadway,
And saw the strange mad people run
And dance about me in the sun,
Or dive into the Underground
Like rabbits frightened by the sound
Of their own scampering through the grass;
I watched a thousand people pass,
But not a one did I hear say--
I made a little song to-day.
I made a little song to-day,
It sang beside me all the way
Until I reached the lower town,
Where crowds went surging up and down.
Their eyes were hard and faces white,
But some of them looked glad and bright,
Yes, here I lie close to a stunted rose bush
In a forgotten place near the fence
Where the thickets from Siever’s woods
Have crept over, growing sparsely.
And you, you are a leader in New York,
The wife of a noted millionaire,
A name in the society columns,
Beautiful, admired, magnified perhaps
By the mirage of distance.
You have succeeded, I have failed
In the eyes of the world.
You are alive, I am dead.
Yet I know that I vanquished your spirit;
And I know that lying here far from you,
Unheard of among your great friends
In the brilliant world where you move,
Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,
Set in the window, bringing memories
Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies
In benediction over nun-like hills.
My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
Manhattan’s roofs and spires and cheerless domes!
The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills.
Almost the mighty city is asleep,
No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet.
But here and there a few cars groaning creep
Along, above, and underneath the street,
Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by,
The women and the men of garish nights,
Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry,
Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights.
The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York.
And I go darkly-rebel to my work.