The morning comes to consciousness
   Of faint stale smells of beer
   From the sawdust-trampled street
   With all its muddy feet that press
   To early coffee-stands.
   With the other masquerades
   That time resumes,
   One thinks of all the hands
   That are raising dingy shades
   In a thousand furnished rooms.

   His soul stretched tight across the skies
   That fade behind a city block,
   Or trampled by insistent feet
   At four and five and six o’clock;
   And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
   And evening newspapers, and eyes
   Assured of certain certainties,
   The conscience of a blackened street
   Impatient to assume the world.

   I am moved by fancies that are curled
   Around these images, and cling:
   The notion of some infinitely gentle
   Infinitely suffering thing.

   Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
   The worlds revolve like ancient women
   Gathering fuel in vacant lots.