Page:Knickerbocker 1864-11 64 5.pdf/22
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406
Broadway.
[November,
BROADWAY.
I.
It is dusk; and the shadows creep over the street,
And they mix with the motion of pattering feet;
They walk, but they talk not—they utter no tones,
And they make not a sound on the foot-worn stones,
As step they keep from square to square,
To the tread of the beggar or the millionaire,
Where houses of stone, through falling glooms,
Uprear their heads like lighted tombs;
Stealing along with so stealthy a tread,
If they did not stir, you would fancy them dead.
But they shrink from the stare of the lamplight glare
With a flickering motion here and there,
(As a murderer shrinks from the flare of day,)
In a guilty, shuddering sort of way.
II.
I sit in my garret; and, nothing to eat,
I list to the ceaseless clatter of feet—
Of the feet of the crowd, which ebbs and flows
With a queer sort of rhythm that nobody knows,
As into the darkness dank and damp
They float like dreams by the furthest lamp,
That lights to avenues of gloom,
Like a dim feu follet to the door of a tomb,
Like a will-o'-the-wisp to the door of a tomb.
I have sat in my garret—where I sit—all day,
In a dreaming, fanciful sort of way,
Half willing to sleep by this star-litten deep,
Where the ships fold their wings, like eagles, to sleep—
To be buried, I say, by this star-litten bay,
Where they bury one gratis—who has nothing to pay.
III.
To the clangor of stages, which pass by the door,
I hark, till it sinks to a far-off roar—
To the languor and moan of a far-off roar—
It is dusk; and the shadows creep over the street,
And they mix with the motion of pattering feet;
They walk, but they talk not—they utter no tones,
And they make not a sound on the foot-worn stones,
As step they keep from square to square,
To the tread of the beggar or the millionaire,
Where houses of stone, through falling glooms,
Uprear their heads like lighted tombs;
Stealing along with so stealthy a tread,
If they did not stir, you would fancy them dead.
But they shrink from the stare of the lamplight glare
With a flickering motion here and there,
(As a murderer shrinks from the flare of day,)
In a guilty, shuddering sort of way.
II.
I sit in my garret; and, nothing to eat,
I list to the ceaseless clatter of feet—
Of the feet of the crowd, which ebbs and flows
With a queer sort of rhythm that nobody knows,
As into the darkness dank and damp
They float like dreams by the furthest lamp,
That lights to avenues of gloom,
Like a dim feu follet to the door of a tomb,
Like a will-o'-the-wisp to the door of a tomb.
I have sat in my garret—where I sit—all day,
In a dreaming, fanciful sort of way,
Half willing to sleep by this star-litten deep,
Where the ships fold their wings, like eagles, to sleep—
To be buried, I say, by this star-litten bay,
Where they bury one gratis—who has nothing to pay.
III.
To the clangor of stages, which pass by the door,
I hark, till it sinks to a far-off roar—
To the languor and moan of a far-off roar—