November in the City / Edith Wyatt

November in the City

    I

Tonight the rain blows down from misty places
Above the roof-tops where the pigeons fly:
And quick the steps; intent, the city's faces
That say that we must hurry — you and I.
Oh, why ? So much speeds through this twilight rain-time,
That's not worth keeping up with. By-and-by
We'll wonder why we always knew the traintime,
And yet knew not November — you and I.

    II

In quiet let us hark. Not till we listen
Shall any song arise for you and me;
Nor ever this broad-stippling music glisten
Twice-told at twilight down the city sea.
The fog-horns call. The lake-winds rush. Just lately
I watched the city lights bloom star on star
Along the streets : and terrace-spaced and stately
Touch moated height and coronet afar.
November's winds blow towards the garnered grain-land.
Blue-buoyed all the shepherd whistles bay:
And flocking down Chicago's dusk-barred main land
The steam and fog-fleeced mists run, buff and gray.
Silence and sound. Wide echoes. Rain-dropped spaces.
Deep-rumbling dray and dipping trolley car.
Steps multitudinous and countless faces.
Along the cloudy street, lit star on star.

    III

Oh, had you thought that only woods and oceans
Were meant to speak the truth to you and me —
That only tides' and stars' immortal motions
Said we are part of all eternity?
The rains that fall and fly in silver tangent,
The passing steps, the fogs that die and live,
These chords that pale and darken, hushed and plangent
Sing proud the praise of splendors fugitive.
For fleet-pulsed mists, and mortal steps and faces
More move me than the tides that know no years —
And music blown from rain-swept human places
More stirs me than the stars untouched with tears.
I think that such a night as this has never
Sung argent here before: and not again
With all these tall-roofed intervals that sever
These streets and corners, etched with lamp-lit rain
Tell just this cool-thrilled tale of Midland spaces
And lake-born mists, that black-lined building's prow
That cuts the steam, this dream in peopled places
That sings its deep-breathed beauty here and now.

    IV

November winds wing towards the garnered grain-land.
The city lights have risen. Proud and free,
Far music swinging down the dusk-barred main land
Cries we are part of all eternity.
Let tne remember, let me rise and sing it!
For others may the mountains be the sign,
Sun, stars, the wooded earth, the seas that ring it,
Of melody immortal. Here is mine.
This night when rain blows down through Midland spaces
And lake-born mists. A black-lined building's prow
That cuts the steam. A dream in peopled places
That sings its deep-breathed beauty here and now.

~~

Edith Wyatt (1873-1958)

from The Wind in the Corn, and other poems, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain in the United States and Canada]

Edith Wyatt biography

Britta Heise, Chicago Night River, November 2011. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.