The Four Crowds

Four crowds in the running to go to their toil,

To enter the city and labor for spoil;

Four crowds, as distinct as the classes of old,

But whose objects are like the coming of gold.

Four crowds in the morning, with sadness or song,

To which crowd do you brother, or sister, belong?

There’s the six o’clock, seven, the eight and the nine,

All streaming to town in a serpent-like line.

The six o’clock crowd has its lunch in a pail,

It must be on its job and it never must fail;

It is clad in its work clothes, its overalls blue,

And its shirt at the neck is well open to view.

And it smokes and converses in ways that are loud,

But it’s healthy and cheerful, this six o’clock crowd.

It handles the horses that clatter all day

Where traffic is heavy and cursing holds sway.

The seven o’clock crowd has its lunch in a box,

And it’s smarter a trifle in collars and frocks;

It fills the hot factories and opens the stoves,

And rubs the large brasses in stairways and doors.

But the eight o’clock crowd is the greatest of all,

As it swarms like a legion attacking a wall;

A stream of bright maidens with beauty endowed,

O, wondrous indeed, is the eight o’clock crowd.

Then with dignity, weight, and finances endowed,

Comes the captains of trade, the nine o’clock crowd.

The bankers, the brokers, the Sampsons who keep

The financial powers from going to sleep.

Four crowds as distinct as the classes of gold,

But with similar objects, the earning of gold.

Each needing the other to make the design,

The six and the seven, the eight and the nine.  

July 22, ‘10

(Monday 25^th)