So hangs the hour like fruit fullblown and sweet, <br />Our strict and desperate avatar, <br />Despite that antique westward gulls lament <br />Over enormous waters which retreat <br />Weary unto the white and sensual star. <br />Accept these images for what they are-- <br />Out of the past a fragile element <br />Of substance into accident. <br />I would speak honestly and of a full heart; <br />I would speak surely for the tale is short, <br />And the soul's remorseless catalogue <br />Assumes its quick and piteous sum. <br />Think you, hungry is the city in the fog <br />Where now the darkened piles resume <br />Their framed and frozen prayer <br />Articulate and shafted in the stone <br />Against the void and absolute air. <br />If so the frantic breath could be forgiven, <br />And the deep blood subdued before it is gone <br />In a savage paternoster to the stone, <br />Then might we all be shriven.<br /><br />Robert Penn Warren<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/san-francisco-night-windows/
