In City Streets

The city's ways were crowded thick,--
I bent my steps athrough its mass
Of men and women, stone and brick,
Its whirring wheels and piping brass.

And all day long, with hurrying feet,
I trod the surging marts of trade;
Yet in the rush and roar of street
A calm within my breast was made.

For visions came of fair things wrought
By beauty's witching hand and grace
Upon my spirit when I caught
Life's spring-time image of her face:--

Blue violets in mossy bed,
Flashing with jewels on their breast;
The sky-stained eggs of robin red
Laid in her lined adobe nest;

The shy lone brook, crept soft upon
Lest I should fright its brattling play;
The woods ahark for something gone,
Or whispering of elf and fay;

The silver lake with lilies in bloom,
Their cups half-full of heaven's gold,--
The circling shore all prankt with plume
Of ferns, whose fronds the waters told;

And up the hill the whitethroat's song--
A crystal bell that shakes the dew!
While floats in dream the cloud along,
And veils the palpitating blue;

The musical and dream-like rain
Falling on roof o'er fragrant hay;
The blood-red spear, unflushed of pain,
Of sunbeam thrust 'tween battens grey;

And in a trice, the sculptured shore
Where halcyon tides with wonder-wings
Redden their plumes in toil to soar
To where Evangeline's memory clings,--

Such sights and sounds swift came and went,--
Glad sunshafts of an April day!
And to impetuous traffic lent
The restful sweetness of the may.

Imprisoned close in city marts,
O childhood, so divinely fair,
For thee, deep in my heart of hearts,
Sweet pity beats her wings all bare!