Summer Nights

When I was a young boy, when I

Played in the streets, when I played, barefoot, in the rain

Which flooded the whole town; when I laughed and cried

Through summer to autumn; again and again,

When finally submerged in the dark-flooded streets

Of my sleep, I had terrible dreams. 

As the buoyant remains from a stricken fleet,

(Whose ships were tossed in rough, crude games

Of the wind, and went down) will slowly rise

To the surface, so all the sunken cargo

Of my heart would float past my mind’s wide eye,

Slowly rise up to the surface and go.

Thus midnight revealed the black ghost of the day,

And the depths of the room bore victims of my play.