THE OLD WAGON-MARKET by RUTH GUTHRIE HARDING

When came I first to Paterson,
(Full twenty years ago)
I hied me to its market-place,
With joy and wonder in my face,
To gaze upon the show:
But, should you go to Paterson,
Things are no longer so.

Thick rows of tulips kissed my eyes . . .
Each little earthen pot
Tip-tilted there along the curb
Did all my studied calm disturb,
(As it would yours, I wot!)
@3O, sit you patient through this tale
And hark you what I got:@1

I bought me cider in a jug,
I bought me beans and pease;
And every time I wandered there
(In Main Street, by the busy square)
I bought me more than these.
I bought the booths of Amsterdam
In a tulip-glowing frieze.

I bought my way inside a frame,
And posed myself for barter;
And thought of Jan Steen's ribald grin
If he could only take me in
A-spending of my quarter . . .
(The cider-barrel at my feet
Had been for Jan a starter?)

I bought a boy from Hals' gay brush,
So droll, yet cherub-like . . .
I glimpsed behind his mother's skirt
The wooden shoes, the solemn shirt
Of him "who saved the dyke!"
I swear the genial ghost of Hals
Knows always where to strike.

(That mother had a shadowed face,
Too lined with hurts and fears;
And though the other women said
That look was gone when she lay dead,
My memory cheats the years:
In Main Street, where the wagons stood,
I bought the sense-of-tears.)

When came I first to Paterson,
(Ah, me, but I was young!)
I thought to make some little songs
About the beauty that belongs
These streets and mills among;
But when the quaint Dutch market went,
I left them all unsung . . .

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