The Spring has grown to Summer; The sun is fierce and high; The city shrinks and withers Beneath a burning sky. Ailanthus trees are fragrant, And thicker shadows cast, While berry-girls, with voices shrill, And watering-carts go past. In offices like ovens We sit without our coats; Our cuffs are moist and shapeless, No collars bind our throats. We carry huge umbrellas On Broad Street and on Wall, Oh, how thermometers go up! And, oh, how stocks @3do@1 fall! The nights are full of music, Melodious Teuton troops Beguile us, calmly smoking, On balconies and stoops. With eyes half-shut and dreamy, We watch the fire-flies' spark, And image far-off faces, As day dies into dark. The avenue is lonely, The houses choked with dust; The shutters, barred and bolted, The bell-knobs all a-rust. No blossom-like spring dresses, No faces young and fair, From "Dickels" to "The Brunswick," No promenader there. The girls we used to walk with Are far away, alas! The feet that kissed its pavement Are deep in country grass. Along the scented hedge-rows, Among the green old trees, Are blooming city faces 'Neath rosy-lined pongees. They're cottaging at Newport; They're bathing at Cape May; In Saratoga's ball-rooms They dance the hours away. Their voices through the quiet Of haunted Catskill break; Or rouse those dreamy dryads, The nymphs of Echo Lake. The hands we've led through Germans, And squeezed, perchance, of yore, Now deftly grasp the bridle, The mallet, and the oar. The eyes that wrought our ruin On other men look down; We're but the broken play-things They've left behind in town. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CASTAWAY by WILLIAM COWPER THE MORAL FABLES: THE SWALLOW, AND THE OTHER BIRDS by AESOP REVOLUTION by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON A GIRL'S SONG ON HER LOVER, PAIDIN RUADH by CHARLES BEWLEY OLD REMEDIES by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |