Six O’Clock

1874 –

1904

Now burst above the city’s cold twilight 
The piercing whistles and the tower-clocks:
For day is done. Along the frozen docks
The workmen set their ragged shirts aright.
Thro’ factory doors a stream of dingy light
Follows the scrimmage as it quickly flocks
To hut and home among the snow’s gray blocks.—
I love you, human labourers. Good-night!
Good-night to all the blackened arms that ache!
Good-night to every sick and sweated brow,
To the poor girl that strength and love forsake,
To the poor boy who can no more! I vow
The victim soon shall shudder at the stake
And fall in blood: we bring him even now.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 13, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.

At Sainte-Marguerite

The gray tide flows and flounders in the rocks
Along the crannies up the swollen sand.
Far out the reefs lie naked—dunes and blocks
Low in the watery wind. A shaft of land
Going to sea thins out the western strand.

Trumbull Stickney

1905

They Lived Enamoured of the Lovely Moon

They lived enamoured of the lovely moon, 
The dawn and twilight on their gentle lake. 
Then Passion marvellously born did shake 
Their breast and drave them into the mid-noon. 
Their lives did shrink to one desire, and soon 
They rose fire-eyed to follow in the wake 
Of one eternal thought,—when sudden brake 
Their hearts. They died, in miserable swoon. 
Of all their agony not a sound was heard. 
The glory of the Earth is more than they.

Trumbull Stickney

1897

On Some Shells Found Inland

These are my murmur-laden shells that keep 
A fresh voice tho' the years be very gray. 
The wave that washed their lips and tuned their lay 
Is gone, gone with the faded ocean sweep, 
The royal tide, gray ebb and sunken neap 
And purple midday,—gone! To this hot clay 
Must sing my shells, where yet the primal day, 
Its roar and rhythm and splendour will not sleep. 
What hand shall join them to their proper sea 
If all be gone?

Trumbull Stickney

1905

Poems

Six O’Clock

More by this poet

At Sainte-Marguerite

They Lived Enamoured of the Lovely Moon

On Some Shells Found Inland

Poems

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Six O’Clock

More by this poet

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