Sonnet: O City, City

Delmore Schwartz

To live between terms, to live where death
has his loud picture in the subway ride,
Being amid six million souls, their breath
An empty song suppressed on every side,
Where the sliding auto’s catastrophe
Is a gust past the curb, where numb and high
The office building rises to its tyranny,
Is our anguished diminution until we die.

Whence, if ever, shall come the actuality
Of a voice speaking the mind’s knowing,
The sunlight bright on the green windowshade,
And the self articulate, affectionate, and flowing,
Ease, warmth, light, the utter showing,
When in the white bed all things are made.

Next 10 Poems

• Delmore Schwartz : Sonnet: The Ghosts Of James And Peirce In Harvard Yard
• Delmore Schwartz : Spiders
• Delmore Schwartz : The Ballad Of The Children Of The Czar
• Delmore Schwartz : The Ballet Of The Fifth Year
• Delmore Schwartz : The Beautiful American Word, Sure
• Delmore Schwartz : The Choir And Music Of Solitude And Silence
• Delmore Schwartz : The First Night Of Fall And Falling Rain
• Delmore Schwartz : The Greatest Thing In North America
• Delmore Schwartz : The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
• Delmore Schwartz : The Journey Of A Poem Compared To All The Sad Variety Of Travel

Previous 10 Poems

• Delmore Schwartz : Sonnet Suggested By Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Vakzy, James Joyce, Et Al.
• Delmore Schwartz : Sonnet On Famous And Familiar Sonnets And Experiences
• Delmore Schwartz : Someone Is Harshly Coughing As Before
• Delmore Schwartz : Socrates Ghost Must Haunt Me Now
• Delmore Schwartz : Saint, Revolutionist
• Delmore Schwartz : Prothalamion
• Delmore Schwartz : Poem ( You, My Photographer, You, Most Aware )
• Delmore Schwartz : Poem ( Remember Midsummer: The Fragrance Of Box )
• Delmore Schwartz : Poem ( Old Man In The Crystal Morning After Snow )
• Delmore Schwartz : Poem ( In The Morning, When It Was Raining )