Sonnet IV

 Alan Seeger

Up at his attic sill the South wind came

And days of sun and storm but never peace.

Along the town’s tumultuous arteries

He heard the heart-throbs of a sentient frame:

Each night the whistles in the bay, the same

Whirl of incessant wheels and clanging cars:

For smoke that half obscured, the circling stars

Burnt like his youth with but a sickly flame.

Up to his attic came the city cries 

The throes with which her iron sinews heave 

And yet forever behind prison doors

Welled in his heart and trembled in his eyes

The light that hangs on desert hills at eve

And tints the sea on solitary shores. . . .