“Under our igloo skies the frozen mind / Holds to one truth: it is gray, and called Rochester”

For Poetry Monday:

“This is My Hour”, Zoe Akins

I.

The ferries ply like shuttles in a loom,
    And many barques come in across the bay
To lights and bells that signal through the gloom
    Of twilight gray;

And like the brown soft flutter of the snow
    The wide-winged sea-birds droop from closing skies,
And hover near the water, circling low,
    As the day dies.

The city like a shadowed castle stands,
    Its turrets indistinctly touching night;
Like earth-born stars far fetched from faerie lands,
    Its lamps are bright.

This is my hour,—when wonder springs anew
    To see the towers ascending, pale and high,
And the long seaward distances of blue,
    And the dim sky.

II.

This is my hour, between the day and night;
    The sun has set and all the world is still,
    The afterglow upon the distant hill
Is as a holy light.

This is my hour, between the sun and moon;
    The little stars are gathering in the sky,
    There is no sound but one bird’s startled cry,—
One note that ceases soon.

The gardens and, far off, the meadow-land,
    Are like the fading depths beneath a sea,
    While over waves of misty shadows we
Drift onward, hand in hand.

This is my hour, that you have called your own;
    Its hushed beauty silently we share,—
    Touched by the wistful wonder in the air
That leaves us so alone.

III.

In rain and twilight mist the city street,
    Hushed and half-hidden, might this instant be
    A dark canal beneath our balcony,
Like one in Venice, Sweet.

The street-lights blossom, star-wise, one by one;
    A lofty tower the shadows have not hid
    Stands out—part column and part pyramid—
Holy to look upon.

The dusk grows deeper, and on silver wings
    The twilight flutters like a weary gull
    Toward some sea-island, lost and beautiful,
Where a sea-syren sings.

“This is my hour,” you breathe with quiet lips;
    And filled with beauty, dreaming and devout,
    We sit in silence, while our thoughts go out—
Like treasure-seeking ships.


Published 1912, when Akins was in her mid-20s and budding her career as a Broadway playwright. Nice to see a nearly-modern poet embracing urban beauty. The poem was dedicated to “Countess V,” whom many assumed was Sara Teasdale, a former classmate, with whom Akins was very close at the time. Both poets were shocked, when asked, at the idea they had any sort of sexual relationship. Honestly, reading it, I assumed the speaker’s “you” was a romantic partner.

---L.

Subject quote from Sestina d’Inverno, Anthony Hecht.