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Home  »  The Book of New York Verse  »  Richard Le Gallienne

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

Brooklyn Bridge at Dawn

Richard Le Gallienne

OUT of the cleansing night of stars and tides,

Building itself anew in the slow dawn,

The long sea-city rises: night is gone,

Day is not yet; still merciful, she hides

Her summoning brow, and still the night-car glides

Empty of faces; the night-watchmen yawn

One to the other, and shiver and pass on,

Nor yet a soul over the great bridge rides.

Frail as a gossamer, a thing of air,

A bow of shadow o’er the river flung,

Its sleepy masts and lonely lapping flood;

Who, seeing thus the bridge a-slumber there,

Would dream such softness, like a picture hung,

Is wrought of human thunder, iron and blood?