Classic Poem

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?"