[464] Central Park at Dusk

Buildings above the leafless trees
Loom high as castles in a dream,

While one by one the lamps come out
To thread the twilight with a gleam.

There is no sign of leaf or bud,
A hush is over everything--

Silent as women wait for love,
The world is waiting for the spring.

 	-- Sara Teasdale

A quietly beautiful little poem, and one that is deceptive in its simplicity
- the uncomplicated and unstartling progression of images and explicit
comparisons mask its economy and precision (I almost hesitate to use so
clinical a word), the subtle, seamless blending of each image into a
continuous whole.

The imagery from the start is reassuringly familiar, imbued with the soft,
dreamlike atmosphere of dusk. Teasdale makes explicit use of common,
evovcative symbols - 'castles in a dream', the lamps lighting one by one,
the twilight itself - to draw the reader into a sense of calm, so that by
the time she says 'a hush is over everything', we share in that hush, making
the conclusion - the one startlingly original note in the poem - doubly
effective.

Links:

This week's theme: poem #462

Teasdale biography: poem #113

-martin

p.s. 'thread the twilight with a gleam' - beautiful phrase, that.