Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AT HALF-PAST FIVE; A FEBRUARY FANCY, by ANDREW EDWARD WATROUS First Line: This is a common dream enough Last Line: As night came down at half-past five. Subject(s): Broadway, New York City | ||||||||
This is a common dream enough You've dreamt it, friend, and so have I Along with like romantic stuff Of how and when a man would die. Futile! It matters little, when Upon Death's roll we're reached and read Where are we; the one wish is then For more names 'twixt ours and the head. We lazy fellows like to prate Of battles o'er and marches done; Yet in the grim king's army great, Conscript, methinks, is every one. Yet more a fool than dreamer he (And fools in this are most alive) Who may in dreams, seen dreams to be, Joy not. I'd die at half-past five, Then when the flood of Broadway's tide Sets upward through the winter mist From the slim city's either side, Drawn like thin glove on slender wrist; With all the league of lights aflare, Above the hurrying roar and bustle That makes for avenue and square, As if for life were strained each muscle; When Trinity points, there below, Still skyward, with its awful face Framed by the red sun's afterglow, In solemn flame from spire to base Then, in this queer old cross-town street, By some dim window, where, at length, Day, dying, wholly failed to meet The task that taxed its noonday strength, As in my dull ear duller grew The hum, as fainter to my eyes The shimmer of the street-lamps through The mist that took in two worlds' rise, A moment would my numb brain seize What prank Fate played so straight-faced well, To keep me toiling like to these For what I could not dying tell A moment would there at the pest Flash laughterfar would buzz their hive, Then stilled this beat here in the breast, As night came down at half-past five. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...UPPER BROADWAY SUNDAY by ALICIA SUSKIN OSTRIKER THE WHITE LIGHTS by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON NEW YEAR'S DAWN - BROADWAY by SARA TEASDALE SUMMER NIGHT-BROADWAY by LOUIS UNTERMEYER A BROADWAY PAGEANT by WALT WHITMAN AT TRINITY by ANDREW EDWARD WATROUS |
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