John Curtis Underwood. The Clock in the Air. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. 1917. The Book of New York Verse

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

The Clock in the Air

By John Curtis Underwood


HIGH on Manhattan’s tallest tower
The clock keeps watch and tells the hour.
The chimes ring out their reveille.
The city wakes and turns to see
Its campanile’s shaft of light	5
Against the sunrise. All the night
It points its finger to the sky.

All day the multitudes march by;
While like a skylark’s song there falls
To waken souls in prison walls	10
To thoughts of meadows far away
From dusty rooms that hide the day;
Of snowpeaks and the open sea;
Of all the city’s symphony
This note supernal and supreme	15
Teaching the toilers how to dream.