Amid the din of cars and automobiles, At the corner of a towering pile of granite, Under the city's soaring brick and stone, Where multitudes go hurrying by, you stand With eyeless sockets playing on a flute. And an old woman holds the cup for you, Wherein a curious passer by at times Casts a poor coin. You are so blind you cannot see us men As walking trees! I fancy from the tune You play upon the flute, you have a vision Of leafy trees along a country road-side, Where wheat is growing and the meadow-larks Rise singing in the sun-shine! In your darkness You may see such things playing on your flute Here in the granite ways of mad Chicago! And here's another on a farther corner, With head thrown back as if he searched the skies. He's selling evening papers, what's to him The flaring headlines? Yet he calls the news. That is his flute, perhaps, for one can call, Or play the flute in blindness. Yet I think It's neither news nor music with these blind ones -- Rather the hope of re-created eyes, And a light out of death! "How can it be," I hear them over and over, "There never shall be eyes for me again?" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A CLEVER WOMAN by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE GOOD FRIDAY (1) by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI CRADLE SONG (TO A TUNE OF BLAKE'S): 1 by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE TO HIS LYRE by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS A SESTINA, IN IMITAION OF SIG. FRA. PETRARCA by PHILIP AYRES SOLILOQUIES OF A SMALL-TOWN TAXI-DRIVER: ON THE WRITING OF POETRY by EDGAR BARRATT |