Classic Poem

I SIT here at the window
This Tuesday afternoon,
In the editorial room
Of the New York Tribune .

I hear upon the cobbles
The tramp of horses' feet;
The newsboys' loud obscenenesses
Here in Frankfort Street.

The echoes of their voices
Back to me are hurled
From the brownstone walls of the building
Of the New York World .

I see the business office,
And I see the floor above it.
I see and hear a lot of things.
Suppose I do. What of it?

" What of it? " Ignoramus!
That obviously shows
How little I know of Poetry,
How all my thoughts are Prose.

" What of it? " If I said that,
Were I so analytic
About the Modern Poetry,
You'd cry, " A rotten critic! "

Yet that is what I think about
This Tuesday afternoon
In the editorial room
Of the New York Tribune .