 | Romance and revery |  |
160
SOME CITY DAYS.
Dear are the days, though far apart,
When summer's genial sorceries flow
Sweet on the city's turbid heart
From where kine feed and daisies blow.
When summer's genial sorceries flow
Sweet on the city's turbid heart
From where kine feed and daisies blow.
When breezes loved by brooks and glades
Float peaceful over greed's raw strife,
And give the untuneful clash of trades
Melodious hints of ampler life.
Float peaceful over greed's raw strife,
And give the untuneful clash of trades
Melodious hints of ampler life.
Such days with soft compassion seem
The infrequent captive trees to greet,
That dewless from dull pavements gleam,
In torrid square or sultry street.
The infrequent captive trees to greet,
That dewless from dull pavements gleam,
In torrid square or sultry street.
They rouse to delicate surprise
Those rare scant shrubs the courtyard sees,
And bid some faded flower surmise
A murmur as though of phantom bees.
Those rare scant shrubs the courtyard sees,
And bid some faded flower surmise
A murmur as though of phantom bees.
161
But other messages they send,
While gladdening thus the town's turmoil,
To piteous lives that yearly bend
Below the tyranny of toil.
While gladdening thus the town's turmoil,
To piteous lives that yearly bend
Below the tyranny of toil.
Sad women, gaunt with need's worst throes,
Will feel the buoyant air's cool thrill,
And flutter like the sickly rose
That pines upon the window-sill.
Will feel the buoyant air's cool thrill,
And flutter like the sickly rose
That pines upon the window-sill.
Rude grimy men that drudge for bread
With spade and trowel, axe and hod,
Will pause in transient dreams to tread
The old leafy lanes their boyhood trod.
With spade and trowel, axe and hod,
Will pause in transient dreams to tread
The old leafy lanes their boyhood trod.
Pale ragged children, reared in woe,
Will faintly view, by instinct's law,
That narrow heaven, the best they know,
Dome a green earth they never saw.
Will faintly view, by instinct's law,
That narrow heaven, the best they know,
Dome a green earth they never saw.
And yet with each fresh breeze that rolls
Through lairs that vice and frailty seek,
To still more melancholy souls
Those dear unusual days may speak.
Through lairs that vice and frailty seek,
To still more melancholy souls
Those dear unusual days may speak.
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Ah! would that nature's holier sway
At such kind hours new strength could win,
And full upon their impious way
Curb the wild reeling feet of sin!
At such kind hours new strength could win,
And full upon their impious way
Curb the wild reeling feet of sin!
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