Classic Poem

Close by the elevated the worst of the back-yards lie,
Barren, desolate spaces under an ashen sky,
Bottles and boxes and papers and pieces of glass and tin,
And rotted boards of fencing that shut the scrap-heap in.

Hopeless, dreary ash-piles — and yet there is laughter here;
And hearts bowed down with labor still trace the round of the year,
When the rays of first spring sunshine strike through the dingy pane,
And the broken, rag-stuffed windows are stripped of their rags again.

For over the dust and ashes roll surges of conquering life,
Life and glory of living, the joy and the pain and the strife,
Love and the faith of loving, and wan hope's fitful gleams;
Ay, even the lost are haunted by the pallid beauty of dreams.