| |
| LET me move slowly through the street, | |
| Filled with an ever-shifting train, | |
| Amid the sound of steps that beat | |
| The murmuring walks like autumn rain. | |
| |
| How fast the flitting figures come! | 5 |
| The mild, the fierce, the stony face—— | |
| Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some | |
| Where secret tears have left their trace. | |
| |
| They pass to toil, to strife, to rest— | |
| To halls in which the feast is spread— | 10 |
| To chambers where the funeral guest | |
| In silence sits beside the dead. | |
| |
| And some to happy homes repair, | |
| Where children, pressing cheek to cheek, | |
| With mute caresses shall declare | 15 |
| The tenderness they cannot speak. | |
| |
| And some, who walk in calmness here, | |
| Shall shudder as they reach the door | |
| Where one who made their dwelling dear, | |
| Its flower, its light, is seen no more. | 20 |
| |
| Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame, | |
| And dreams of greatness in thine eye! | |
| Go’st thou to build an early name, | |
| Or early in the task to die? | |
| |
| Keen son of trade, with eager brow! | 25 |
| Who is now fluttering in thy snare? | |
| Thy golden fortunes, tower they now, | |
| Or melt the glittering spires in air? | |
| |
| Who of this crowd to-night shall tread | |
| The dance till daylight gleam again? | 30 |
| Who sorrow o’er the untimely dead? | |
| Who writhe in throes of mortal pain? | |
| |
| Some, famine-struck, shall think how long | |
| The cold, dark hours, how slow the light; | |
| And some, who flaunt amid the throng, | 35 |
| Shall hide in dens of shame to-night. | |
| |
| Each where his tasks or pleasures call, | |
| They pass, and heed each other not. | |
| There is who heeds, who holds them all | |
| In His large love and boundless thought. | 40 |
| |
| These struggling tides of life, that seem | |
| In wayward, aimless course to tend, | |
| Are eddies of the mighty stream | |
| That rolls to its appointed end. | |
| |
