Amy Lowell: A London Thoroughfare – 2 A.M.

Amy Lowell

(1874-1925)

A London Thoroughfare – 2 A.M.

They have watered the street,

It shines in the glare of lamps,

Cold, white lamps,

And lies

Like a slow-moving river,

Barred with silver and black.

Cabs go down it,

One,

And then another,

Between them I hear the shuffling of feet.

Tramps doze on the window-ledges,

Night-walkers pass along the sidewalks.

The city is squalid and sinister,

With the silver-barred street in the midst,

Slow-moving,

A river leading nowhere.

 

Opposite my window,

The moon cuts,

Clear and round,

Through the plum-coloured night.

She cannot light the city:

It is too bright.

It has white lamps,

And glitters coldly.

 

I stand in the window and watch the moon.

She is thin and lustreless,

But I love her.

I know the moon,

And this is an alien city.

 

Poem of the week – December 28, 2008

fleursdumal.nl magazine

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