At Night

The sky is dark, and dark the bay below
Save where the midnight city's pallid glow
Lies like a lily white
On the black pool of night.

O rushing steamer, hurry on thy way
Across the swirling Kills and gusty bay,
To where the eddying tide
Strikes hard the city's side!

For there, between the river and the sea,
Beneath that glow,--the lily's heart to me,--
A sleeping mother mild,
And by her breast a child.