Classic Poem

May flowers on the city street —
A keen-faced vendor sells, with eyes
Fitted for coarser merchandise
Than these pathetic bits of sweet
That breathe of vague simplicities.

May flowers on the city street —
Here where the tide of traffic roars
Against its narrow crowded shores
Where men go by with hurrying feet
And barter swings its thousand doors.

May flowers on the city street —
Why, 'tis as though the young-eyed spring
Herself had come — an artless thing,
A country lass, demure and neat —
To smile upon us wondering.

May flowers on the city street —
Pink and white poetry abloom
Here in this clamor, crush and gloom —
A home-thought in the battle's heat,
A love-song in a sunless room.

May flowers on the city street —
For one poor coin behold I buy
Springtime and youth and poetry,
E'en in this sordid mart unmeet
So many miles from Arcady.