One, from his high bright window, looking down, Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town, And thinks its towers are like a dream. The western windows flame in the sun's last flare, Pale roofs begin to gleam. Looking down from a window high in a wall He sees us all; Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain, Searching the sky, and going our ways again, Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . . There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees What we are blind to,--we who mass and crowd From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud. The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers, Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly; Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain. The yellow lamps wink one by one again. The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky. III. One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand, With wave upon slowly shattering wave, Turned to the city of towers as evening fell; And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it; And saw how the towers darkened against the sky; And across the distance heard the toll of a bell. Along the darkening road he hurried alone, With his eyes cast down, And thought how the streets were hoarse with a tide of people, With clamor of voices, and numberless faces . . . And it seemed to him, of a sudden, that he would drown Here in the quiet of evening air, These empty and voiceless places . . . And he hurried towards the city, to enter there. Along the darkening road, between tall trees That made a sinister whisper, loudly he walked. Behind him, sea-gulls dipped over long grey seas. Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked. And death was observed with sudden cries, And birth with laughter and pain. And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies And night came down again. IV. Up high black walls, up sombre terraces, Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs, The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky. From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain, Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye. They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower, Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew. And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished, And some strange shadows threw. And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving, Restlessly moving in each lamplit room, From chair to mirror, from mirror to fire; From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom: From some, a dazzling desire. And there was one, beneath black eaves, who thought, Combing with lifted arms her golden hair, Of the lover who hurried towards her through the night; And there was one who dreamed of a sudden death As she blew out her light.