Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

In the Dark City

John Hall Wheelock

THERE is a harper plays

Through the long watches of the lonely night

When, like a cemetery,

Sleeps the dark city, with her millions laid each in his tomb.

I feel it in my dream; but when I wake,

Suddenly, like some secret thing not to be overheard,

It ceases—

And the gray night grows dumb.

Only in memory

Linger those veiled adagios, fading, fading …

Till, with the morning, they are lost.

What door was opened then?

What worlds undreamed of lie around us in our sleep,

That yet we may not know?

Where is it one sat playing

Over and over, with such high and dreadful peace,

The passion and sorrow of the eternal doom?