At A Window Sill
By Christopher Morley
To write a sonnet needs a quiet mind….
I paused and pondered, tried again. To write….
Raising the sash, I breathed the winter night:
Papers and small hot room were left behind.
Against the gusty purple, ribbed and spined
With golden slots and vertebræ of light
Men’s cages loomed. Down sliding from a height
An elevator winked as it declined.
Coward! There is no quiet in the brain—
If pity burns it not, then beauty will:
Tinder it is for every blowing spark.
Uncertain whether this is bliss or pain
The unresting mind will gaze across the sill
From high apartment windows, in the dark.
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