A Crowded Trolley Car / Elinor Wylie

A Crowded Trolley Car


The rain's cold grains are silver-gray Sharp as golden sands, A bell is clanging, people sway Hanging by their hands.

Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff, Snatch and catch and grope; That face is yellow-pale, as if The fellow swung from rope.

Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives, Glances strike and glare, Fingers tangle, Bluebeard's wives Dangle by the hair.

Orchard of the strangest fruits Hanging from the skies; Brothers, yet insensate brutes Who fear each other's eyes.

One man stands as free men stand, As if his soul might be Brave, unbroken; see his hand Nailed to an oaken tree.