Rag-time
The lamps glow here and there, then echo down
The vast deserted vistas of the town :—
Each light the echo'd note of some refrain
Repeated in the city's fevered brain.
Yet all is still, save when there wanders past
—Finding the silence of the night too long—
Some tattered wretch who, from the night outcast,
Sings with an aching heart a comic song.
[ . . . ]
Osbert Sitwell's poem "Rag-time" was published in the 1917 Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below: