Within the city,

The streets which were the last to fall to sleep,

Hold yet stale fragments of the night.

Sleep oozes out of stagnant ash-barrels,

Sleep drowses over litter in the streets.

Sleep nods upon the milkcans by back doors.

And, in shut rooms,

Behind the lowered window-blinds,

Drawn white faces unwittingly flout the day.

But, at the edges of the city,