The Tower

One, from his high bright window in a tower,

Leans out, as evening falls,

And sees the advancing curtain of the

Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:

Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,

And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,

Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,

And silver falling from eave and tree.

One, from his high bright window, looking down,

Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,

And thinks its towers are like a dream.

The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,

Pale roofs begin to gleam.

Looking down from a window high in a

He sees us all;

Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain,

Searching the sky, and going our ways again,

Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . .

There, in the high bright window he dreams, and

What we are blind to,—we who mass and

From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud.

The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers,

Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly;

Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain.

The yellow lamps wink one by one again.

The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky.