The World Is Wide

The world is wide--around yon court,
Where dirty little children play,
Another world of street on street
Grows wide and wider every day.

And round the town for endless miles
A great strange land of green is spread--
O wide the world, O weary-wide,
But it is wider overhead.

For could you mount yon glittering stairs
And on their topmost turret stand,--
Still endless shining courts and squares,
And lanes of lamps on every hand.

And, might you tread those starry streets
To where those long perspectives bend,
O you would cast you down and die--
Street upon street, world without end.