Month: April 2020

The Coming of Night 

(In the city)

The sun is near set

And the tall buildings

Become teeth

Tearing bloodily at the sky's throat;

The blank wall by my window

Becomes night sky over the marshes

When there is no moon, and no wind,

And little fishes splash in the pools.

 

I had lit my candle to make a song for you,

But I have forgotten it for I am very tired;

And the candle . . . a yellow moth . . .

Flutters, flutters,

Deep in my brain.

I had lit my candle to make a song for you,

But I have forgotten it for I am very tired;

And the candle . . . a yellow moth . . .

Flutters, flutters,

Deep in my brain.

My song was about, 'a foreign lady

Who was beautiful and sad,

Who was forsaken, and who died

A thousand years ago.'

But the cracked cup at my elbow,

With dregs of tea in it,

Fixes my tired thought more surely

Than the song I made for you and forgot . . .

That I might give you this.

 

I am tired.

 

I am so tired

That my soul is a great plain

Made desolate,

[ . . . ]

 

Skipwith Cannell's poem "The Coming of Night" was published in the 1917 Others anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

HathiTrust.org