The old eternal spring once more

Half a century ago,In beauty and stately pride?In they would come past the beacon light,With the sun on gleaming sail and spar,Folding their wings like birds in flightFrom countries strange and far.Schooner and brig and barkentine,I watched them slow as the sails were furled,And wondered what cities they must have seenOn the other side of…

Of beauty, joy, and knowledge,Thy cry is still for more?‘Count all the years of strivingTo make thy burden less, —The things designed and fashionedTo gladden thy success!‘The treasures sought and gatheredThy lightest whim to please, —The loot of all the ages,The spoil of all the seas!‘Is there no end of labor,No limit to thy need?Must…

Said Jock-a-dreams to John-a-nods,‘What are the oddsThat we shall wake up here within the sun,When time is done,And pick up all the treasures one by oneOur hands let fall in sleep?’ ‘You have begunTo mutter in your dreams,’Said John-a-nods to Jock-a-dreams,And they both slept again.The tall carnations in the sunset glowBurned row on row.Said John-a-nods…

I see the wintry breakers rollAnd heave their froth up the freezing sands.Here in immunity safe and dull,Soul treads her circuit of trivial things.There soul’s brother, a shining gull,Dares the rough weather on dauntless wings.

And babies put their rosy fistsInto their eyes.There’s nothing out of No-man’s-landSo drowsy since the world began,As ‘Dustman, dustman,Dustman.’He goes his village round at duskFrom door to door, from day to day;And when the children hear his stepThey stop their play.‘Dustman, dustman!’Far up the street he is descried,And soberly the twilight gamesAre laid aside.‘Dustman, dustman!’There,…

And takes the heart out of the day?What makes the morning look so mean,The Common so forlorn and gray?The wintry city’s granite heartBeats on in iron mockery,And like the roaming mountain rains,I hear the thresh of feet go by.It is the lonely human surfSurging through alleys chill with grime,The muttering churning ceaseless floeAdrift out of…