IX

A sallow dawn is in the sky As I enter my little green room. Sadie's light is still burning... Without, the frail moon

Worn to a silvery tissue, Throws a faint glamour on the roofs, And down the shadowy spires Lights tip-toe out...

Softly as when lovers close street doors. Out of the Battery A little wind Stirs idly — as an arm

Trails over a boat's side in dalliance — Rippling the smooth dead surface of the heat, And Hester street, Like a forlorn woman over-born

By many babies at her teats, Turns on her trampled bed to meet the day. Life, Articulate, shrill,

Screaming in provocative assertion, Or out of the black and clotted gutters, Piping in silvery thin Sweet staccato

Of children's laughter, Or clinging over the pushcarts Like a litter of tiny bells Or the jingle of silver coins,

Perpetually changing hands, Or like the Jordan somberly Swirling in tumultuous uncharted tides, Surface-calm.

Electric currents of life, Throwing off thoughts like sparks, Glittering, disappearing, Making unknown circuits,

Or out of spent particles stirring Feeble contortions in old faiths Passing before the new. Long nights argued away

In meeting halls Back of interminable stairways — In Roumanian wine-shops And little Russian tea-rooms...

Feet echoing through deserted streets In the soft darkness before dawn... Brows aching, throbbing, burning — Life leaping in the shaken flesh

Like flame at an asbestos curtain. Life — Pent, overflowing Stoops and façades,

Jostling, pushing, contriving, Seething as in a great vat... Bartering, changing, extorting, Dreaming, debating, aspiring,

Astounding, indestructible Life of the Ghetto... Strong flux of life, Like a bitter wine

Out of the bloody stills of the world... Out of the Passion eternal.