Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.
When Broadway Was a Country RoadCharles Coleman Stoddard
N
Disturbed the peaceful summer days
That shone as now upon the street
That knows our busy noisy ways.
And blushing girls and awkward jays
Strolled slowly home, and cattle lowed
As fell the purple twilight haze,
When Broadway was a country road.
No damsels of the latest craze
Of form and fashion; no conceit
To catch the fancy or amaze,
No buildings met the skyward gaze;
Nor myriad lights that nightly glowed
To set the midnight hour ablaze—
When Broadway was a country road.
Led gently down to quiet bays
Or to the sheltered, hedged retreat
Some falling mansion now betrays.
The stage-coach here no longer pays
Its daily call, nor farmer’s goad
Their oxen, as in olden days
When Broadway was a country road.
Of modern times the picture showed.
And yet the fancy fondly strays
To Broadway as a country road.