Paz (Mexico): The Street

The Street

by Octavio Paz

Here is a long and silent street.

I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall

and rise, and I walk blind, my feet

trampling the silent stones and the dry leaves.

Someone behind me also tramples, stones, leaves:

if I slow down, he slows;

if I run, he runs I turn : nobody.

Everything dark and doorless,

only my steps aware of me,

I turning and turning among these corners

which lead forever to the street

where nobody waits for, nobody follows me,

where I pursue a man who stumbles

and rises and says when he sees me : nobody.

Lenox Avenue: Midnight

by Langston Hughes

The rhythm of life

Is a jazz rhythm.

Honey.

The gods are laughing at us.

The broken heart of love,

The weary, weary heart of pain,-

Overtones,

Undertones,

To the rumble of street cars,

To the swish of rain.

Lenox Avenue,

Honey.

Midnight,

And the gods are laughing at us.

Acquainted with the Night

by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost