THE CITY REVISITED

by: Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943)

he grey gulls drift across the bay

Softly and still as flakes of snow

Against the thinning fog. All day

I sat and watched them come and go;

And now at last the sun was set,

Filling the waves with colored fire

Till each seemed like a jewelled spire

Thrust up from some drowned city. Soon

From peak and cliff and minaret

The city's lights began to wink,

Each like a friendly word. The moon

Began to broaden out her shield,

Spurting with silver. Straight before

The brown hills lay like quiet beasts

Stretched out beside a well-loved door,

And filling earth and sky and field

With the calm heaving of their breasts.




Nothing was gone, nothing was changed,

The smallest wave was unestranged

By all the long ache of the years

Since last I saw them, blind with tears.

Their welcome like the hills stood fast:

And I, I had come home at last.




So I laughed out with them aloud

To think that now the sun was broad,

And climbing up the iron sky,

Where the raw streets stretched sullenly

About another room I knew,

In a mean house — and soon there, too,

The smith would burst the flimsy door

And find me lying on the floor.

Just where I fell the other night,

After that breaking wave of pain. —

How they will storm and rage and fight,

Servants and mistress, one and all,

"No money for the funeral!"




I broke my life there. Let it stand

At that.




The waters are a plain,

Heaving and bright on either hand,

A tremulous and lustral peace

Which shall endure though all things cease,

Filling my heart as water fills

A cup. There stand the quiet hills.

So, waiting for my wings to grow,

I watch the gulls sail to and fro,

Rising and falling, soft and swift,

Drifting along as bubbles drift.

And, though I see the face of God

Hereafter — this day have I trod

Nearer to Him than I shall tread

Ever again. The night is dead.

And there's the dawn, poured out like wine

Along the dim horizon-line.

And from the city comes the chimes —




We have our heaven on earth — sometimes!

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