Rebecca Park Lawrence

The voice of the city:
Boy, there in the candle light

Take your silver flute and sing.

See! Outside the lamps are bright

Burning, flashing, rioting.

Sounds are in the city street—

Take your silver flute and sing!

Music of a million feet,

Plodding, dancing, faltering.

The boy takes up his flute and points toward the river:
Passers-by, O passers-by,

Come to the rim of the windy sky!

See you the silver, shimmering street

Where the bricks and river meet?

There’s the path I go to follow—oh, to follow!

Up the dusk-dimmed mountain’s hollow,

Where little roads lead higher, higher,

Into the white, white heart of fire.

Passers-by, O passers-by,

Do you hear the sob in the wind-wide sky?

A hurdy-gurdy plays between the tenements, and a balloon man passes with bright red, blue and orange balloons tugging at their strings. The voice of the city—roaring:
Boy, snuff out your candle light,

Bid your flute now cease to sing.

See!—outside the lamps are bright—

Blazing, flashing, rioting.

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