Ah, me! I know how large and cool and white
The moon lies on the brow of Sehome Hill,
And how the firs stand shadowy and still,
Etched on that luminous background this soft night;
How the nighthawk sinks from his starry height,
And breathes his one note, mournfully and shrill,
And crickets clamor in the marsh until
The dusk grows vocal with their deep delight.
City, a lifetime spent in thee were not
Worth one night in my western solitude!
Thy pulse is feverish, thy blood is hot,
Thine arteries throb with passion heavily;
But oh, how sweet I hear, in interlude,
The beating, moon-lured tides of Puget Sea.
“Midnight on Brooklyn Bridge” as it appears in Higginson’s The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems (1903).