Sleeping at the Shamrock Hilton

Randall Jarrell was the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—the position now known as United States Poet Laureate—from 1956 to 1958. A poem written during this period, “Sleeping at the Shamrock Hilton,” was published posthumously in Prairie Schooner many years later, in the fall of 1973. The fall of ’73 was very typical in Lincoln, with an average temperature of 52.8°F and total precipitation of 14.2 inches.

by Tory Clower

Sleeping at the Shamrock Hilton

All night, tending a roar,

The patrons feed a leg into an eye,

An eye into a—

something half
An eyeleg, half a legeye, inches achingly

Into the light of night and, on the hour,

Is severed by a blade of the machine.

Men, bending from a belt, reach out to it

And measure it and leave it on the floor:

This cornerstone the building has rejected

When, compared to a standard cornerstone and found defective,

It was found, compared to a standard cornerstone, defective

Compared to a—O air-conditioning machine

Of the fifth floor of the Shamrock Hilton,

Be quiet and let me wake!

1958