Six O'Clock

I promised him that I would wait

Here in the car, then he can go

Straight home from his mill and not be late

For dinner. How shrill those whistles blow!

Where factory smoke has laid a long black bruise

Across the tender apricot sky

Soft hands of night will blur it out.

Grey children, leaving work you did not choose

And walking without play or shout,

You scar my heart until I die.

Those weary houses leaning up the hill

Insult me with monotony.

The only flower in each yard I see

(One blossom neither heat nor cold can kill)

Is a round black washpot whose three legs spread

Over ashes and toil, both greyly dead.

Where spinners open a door I must inhale

Air that is lint-encrusted, spring-denied;

Tonight my first-picked strawberries will taste stale

And bitter like that sweat, unwiped, which dried

In droll white patches on those grimy faces.

Hereafter I shall wait in other places!