Charles deKay

THE CITY slowly wakes:

Her every chimney makes

Offering of smoke against the cool white skies.

Slowly the morning shakes

The lingering shadowy flakes

Of night from doors and windows, from the city’s eyes.

A breath through heaven goes:

Leaves of the pale sweet rose

Are strewn along the clouds of upper air.

Healer of ancient woes,

The palm of dawn bestows

Peace on the feverish brow, comfort on grim despair.

Now the celestial fire

Fingers the sunken spire,

Crocket by crocket swiftly creepeth down;

Brushes the maze of wire,

Dewy, electric lyre,

And with a silent hymn one moment fills the town.

A sound of pattering hoofs

Above the emergent roofs

And anxious bleatings tell the passing herd;

Scared by the piteous droves

A shoal of skurrying doves

Veering, around the island of the church has whirred.

Soon through the smoky haze

The park begins to raise

Its outlines clearer into daylit prose;

Ever with fresh amaze

The sleepless fountains praise

Morn that has gilt the city as it gilds the rose.

High in the clear air

The smoke now builds a stair

Leading to realms no wing of bird has found;

Things are more foul, more fair;

A distant clock somewhere

Strikes, and the dreamer starts at clear reverberant sound.

Farther the tide of dark

Drains from each square and park;

Here is a city fresh and new-create,

Wondrous as though the ark

Should once again disbark

On a remoulded world its safe and joyous freight.

Ebbs all the dark, and now

Life eddies to and fro

By pier and alley, street and avenue:

The myriads stir below,

As hives of coral grow—

Vaulted above, like them with a fresh sea of blue.

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