Great City

When I returned at sunset, The serving-maid was singing softly Under the dark stairs, and in the house Twilight had entered like a moon-ray. Tune was so dead I could not understand The meaning of midday or of midnight, But like falling waters, falling, hissing, falling, Silence seemed an everlasting sound. I sat in my room, And watched sunset, And saw starlight. I heard the tramp of homing men, And the last call of the last child; Then a lone bird twittered, And suddenly, beyond the housetops, I imagined dew in the country, In the hay, on the buttercups; The rising moon, The scent of early night, The songs, the echoes, Dogs barking, Day closing, Gradual slumber, Sweet rest. When all the lamps were lighted in the town I passed into the street ways and I watched, Wakeful, almost happy, And half the night I wandered in the street.