New York Nocturnes, and Other Poems — The Ideal

_To Her, when life was little worth, When hope, a tide run low, Between dim shores of emptiness Almost forgot to flow,--_ _Faint with the city’s fume and stress I came at night to Her.

Her cool white fingers on my face-- How wonderful they were!

_ _More dear they were to fevered lids Than lilies cooled in dew.

They touched my lips with tenderness, Till life was born anew.

_ _The city’s clamour died in calm;

And once again I heard The moon-white woodland stillnesses Enchanted by a bird;_ _The wash of far, remembered waves;

The sigh of lapsing streams;

And one old garden’s lilac leaves Conferring in their dreams.

_ _A breath from childhood daisy fields Came back to me again, Here in the city’s weary miles Of city-wearied men.

_ CONTENTS

NEW YORK NOCTURNES

PAGE

The Ideal 5 In the Crowd 9 Night in a Down-town Street 10 At the Railway Station 13 Nocturnes of the Honeysuckle, I 16 Nocturnes of the Honeysuckle, II 17 My Garden 18 Presence 21 Twilight on Sixth Avenue 22 The Street Lamps 24 In Darkness 25 In the Solitude of the City 26 A Nocturne of Exile 28 A Street Vigil 30 A Nocturne of Trysting 32 In a City Room 34 A Nocturne of Consecration 36 OTHER POEMS

An Evening Communion 45 Life and Art 48 Beyond the Tops of Time 49 Dream-Fellows 55 The Atlantic Cable 61 When the Clover Blooms Again 63 At Tide Water 65 The Falling Leaves 67 Marjory 68 The Solitary Woodsman 72 The Stirrup Cup 77 Ice 78 The Hermit 79 “O Thou who bidd’st” 82 Ascription 83 New York Nocturnes Ὦ Θεοί, τίς ἆρα Κύπρις, ἢ τίς ἵμερος, τοῦδε ξυνήψατο;

New York Nocturnes