| Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917. | | | | The Parks | | By Charles Hanson Towne |
| | | THERE are green islands in the city sea, | |
| Where all day long, the endless, passionate waves | |
| Beat, yet destroy not; and their quiet saves | |
| How many a heart grown sick with memory! | |
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| Not derelicts alone are foundered there, | 5 |
| But children with the laughter of the May— | |
| Bright living flowers—in these glad gardens play, | |
| Knowing, yet knowing not, the town’s despair! | |
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| God made the ocean, where tumultuously | |
| The loud storms burst; and Babylon he made; | 10 |
| Yet all the hills are His, dim valley and glade— | |
| There are green islands in the city sea. | | | | |
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