| |
| I WATCH the water lilies in this pond, | |
| The white, the blue—the yellow and the red, | |
| The sparrow tripping on their pads beyond, | |
| And splashing dewdrops on his wings and head. | |
| |
| The lotus, like a Cleopatra there, | 5 |
| Reveals a bosom with a roseate glow, | |
| As in her gorgeous old Egyptian lair | |
| She fascinated heroes long ago. | |
| |
| Adown the walk a throng of children goes | |
| With dewy eyes a-peep through hazy curls, | 10 |
| When years are poems, every month a rose, | |
| All morns are rubies and all noons are pearls. | |
| |
| Around these seats I see a motley crowd | |
| Of listless loungers, miserable and low, | |
| With backs bent double, wrinkled faces bowed, | 15 |
| Or, aimless, straggling by with footsteps slow. | |
| |
| With corncob pipes, these old men mumbling sit, | |
| Forsaken, friendless, waiting but for death, | |
| When, like the dead leaves that around them flit, | |
| They fall to be forgotten in a breath. | 20 |
| |
| And here a hard-faced girl reclines alone, | |
| Dreaming of dead days with their holy calm, | |
| Before her happy heart was turned to stone, | |
| And slumber to her spirit brought no balm. | |
| |
| Here the young poet, once a farmer boy, | 25 |
| Who with glad heart unto the city came, | |
| Sees manhood years his high-born hopes destroy, | |
| And slay his dreams of fortune and of fame. | |
| |
| When night descends, electric argent lamps, | |
| Like radiant cactus blossoms, blaze on high; | 30 |
| The city seems a world of warlike camps, | |
| While Broadway with his legions thunders by. | |
| |
| In gilt play-houses hundreds sigh to see | |
| The mimic woes of actors on the stage, | |
| But not one tear for actual grief shall be, | 35 |
| The snares for childhood or the pangs of age. | |
| |
| Around this Square rich men and women ride, | |
| Bedizened creatures in their fashion flaunt, | |
| While this starved outcast, planning suicide, | |
| Steals back to perish in his dismal haunt. | 40 |
| |
| Strange, while is known so well the sparrow’s fall, | |
| Man heeds not when his brother’s plaint is made; | |
| Strange, that the brightest, whitest light of all | |
| Should cast the deepest and the darkest shade! | |
| |
| But still the world denies its helping hand | 45 |
| To those most worthy of its love and care. | |
| If Christ returned to-night, He too would stand | |
| Homeless and friendless, here in Union Square. | |
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