FACES by MIRIAM DEL BANCO

In the life of a crowded city,
Midst the din of the busy street,
You can study humanity's phases,
In the different faces you meet;
There are some whose every feature
Will mirror a placid stream;
And we know that to them, life e'er will be
An empty, idle dream.

Then again a face will meet you
As smiling as summer's day;
But a moment of thought will discover
It has but put away,
Beneath a careless action,
A weary weight of woe;
And only a few and God above
The pain of a bruised heart know.

And sometimes before your vision,
Will flit a kind, dear face,
Where, in each speaking feature,
Your eager eyes may trace
A soul, before whose beauty
The world's best hearts will bow;
And the kiss of an angel—the seal of God
Is pressed on the fair, calm brow.

Some faces portray but gladness;
Some heartache and pain and woe;
While some seem silently fading from earth
And breaking their hearts as they go
Some bear the impress of shame and vice;
Some are as a gleam of Heaven;
Some hard are and cruel and sternly cold,
And others like sweet balm given.

Ah, thus does the world's kaleidoscope
Shift round and around forever,
And every face has its history;
Variety wanting is never;
It needs not the wisdom of sage or saint
To read all the faces we meet,
As we hurry along through the din and the dust,
In the life of the crowded street.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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