This is the second and last stanza of the poem "Preludes" I need to rephrase.

Question

Thank you very much for your help.

The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades
That times resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

REPHRASE
The morning is pervaded by the unpleasant smell of beer (faint stale smells of beer??). The town people are walking along sawdust trampled streets (how can I rephrase this?) to early coffee-stands. Human beings are compared to dingy shades. They are as inconsistant as shadows. Though deprived of their human dignity, they are getting up in their furnished room.
I can't understand the verse "with the other masquerades that time resumes"

Thank you very much for your help!!

Answer 1

The town people = The townspeople

sawdust trampled streets = streets sprinkled/covered with sawdust?

the hands raising dingy shades implies that the apartments are dismal where people are raising the shades. It does not compare people with those shades.

with the other masquerades that time resumes = to me this describes the drudgery of each day just trying to survive in the big city. Each life may be different but looking at a tenement building, for example, who can tell?

Sra