In the cool of the night time <br />The clocks pick off the points <br />And the mainsprings loosen. <br />They will need winding. <br />One of these days <br />they will need winding. <br /> <br />Rabelais in red boards, <br />Walt Whitman in green, <br />Hugo in ten-cent paper covers, <br />Here they stand on shelves <br />In the cool of the night time <br />And there is nothing . . . . <br />To be said against them . . . . <br />Or for them . . . . <br />In the cool of the night time <br />And the docks. <br /> <br />A man in pigeon-gray pyjamas. <br />The open window begins at his feet <br />And goes taller than his head. <br />Eight feet high is the pattern. <br /> <br />Moon and mist make an oblong layout. <br />Silver at the man's bare feet. <br />He swings one foot in a moon silver. <br />And it costs nothing. <br /> <br />(One more day of bread and work. <br />One more day . . . .so much rags . <br /> <br />The man barefoot in moon silver <br />Mutters "You" and "You" <br />To things hidden <br />In the cool of the night time, <br />In Rabelais, Whitman, Hugo, <br />In an oblong of moon mist. <br /> <br />Out from the window . . . . prairielands. <br />Moon mist whitens a golf ground. <br />Whiter yet is a limestone quarry. <br />The crickets keep on chirring. <br /> <br />Switch engines of the Great Western <br />Sidetrack box cars, make up trains <br />For Weehawken, Oskaloosa, Saskatchewan; <br />The cattle, the coal, the corn, must go <br />In the night . . . . on the prairielands. <br /> <br />Chuff-chuff go the pulses. <br />They beat in the cool of the night time. <br />Chuff-chuff and chuff-chuff . . . . <br />These heartbeats travel the night a mile <br />And touch the moon silver at the window <br />And the hones of the man. <br />It costs nothing. <br /> <br />Rabelais in red boards, <br />Whitman in green, <br />Hugo in ten-cent paper covers, <br />Here they stand on shelves <br />In the cool of the night time <br />And the clocks.<br /><br />Carl Sandburg<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/interior-4/
