Poetry Archives

The northern woods are delicately sweet,
   The lake is folded softly by the shore,
   But I am restless for the subway’s roar,
The thunder and the hurrying of feet.
I try to sleep, but still my eyelids beat
   Against the image of the tower that bore
   Me high aloft, as if thru heaven’s door
I watched the world from God’s unshaken seat.
I would go back and breathe with quickened sense
   The tunnel’s strong hot breath of powdered steel;
But at the ferries I should leave the tense
      Dark air behind, and I should mount and be
   One among many who are thrilled to feel
      The first keen sea-breath from the open sea.