Poem by Elinor Wylie

A Crowded Trolley-Car

The rain’s cold grains are silver-gray 
Sharp as golden sands, 
A bell is clanging, people sway 
Hanging by their hands.

Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff, 
Snatch and catch and grope; 
That face is yellow-pale, as if 
The fellow swung from rope.

Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives, 
Glances strike and glare, 
Fingers tangle, Bluebeard’s wives 
Dangle by the hair.

Orchard of the strangest fruits 
Hanging from the skies; 
Brothers, yet insensate brutes 
Who fear each other’s eyes.

One man stands as free men stand, 
As if his soul might be 
Brave, unbroken; see his hand 
Nailed to an oaken tree.

1. In Our Content, before the Autumn Came
2. Upon Your Heart, Which Is.the Heart of All
3. The Little Beauty That I Was Allowed
4. Absent Thee from Felicity Awhile
5. The Broken Man

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