The curtains are drawn as though it still were night...

The curtains are drawn as though it still were night,

A slip of dawn between them is a dangling silver ribbon;

And all about the room is quietness — Each patient chair

Erect, alert, in place. A letter on the table and a book

Lie as you left them, now bereft of purpose —

Garish a little in the room's sedateness, you

Returning dressed so frivolously in all your coloured clothes!

How grey and sober, full of placid wit

The furniture, the pictures on the wall;

How steely swift the light, stabbing you to the heart

As you stand at the window, bright as rushing blood.

Garish your hair, your shoes, your startling chalky face

And white, white gloves...

What time is it?... Still ticks the tireless clock,

With face grimacing... nearly six it is....

Yet hurries not nor lingers, like our hearts,

For in its dial eternity is housed —

A cock should crow... there are no cocks in town!

But a water cart with surly noise below

Grates unconcerned along the disconsolate street.

How cold and how familiar all these things,

To you so lonely in the enormous dawn

Slowly unfastening that vermilion dress...