When I returned at sunset, <br />The serving-maid was singing softly <br />Under the dark stairs, and in the house <br />Twilight had entered like a moon-ray. <br />Tune was so dead I could not understand <br />The meaning of midday or of midnight, <br />But like falling waters, falling, hissing, falling, <br />Silence seemed an everlasting sound. <br /> <br />I sat in my room, <br />And watched sunset, <br />And saw starlight. <br />I heard the tramp of homing men, <br />And the last call of the last child; <br />Then a lone bird twittered, <br />And suddenly, beyond the housetops, <br />I imagined dew in the country, <br />In the hay, on the buttercups; <br />The rising moon, <br />The scent of early night, <br />The songs, the echoes, <br />Dogs barking, <br />Day closing, <br />Gradual slumber, <br />Sweet rest. <br /> <br />When all the lamps were lighted in the town <br />I passed into the street ways and I watched, <br />Wakeful, almost happy, <br />And half the night I wandered in the street.<br /><br />Harold Monro<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/great-city/
