ON THE THOROUGHFARE
Reading edition
To-day I go to buy some dates From Glyco’s cart. “Ten cents,” my smiling fruitman states, And then we part— I to the mart, He for the next fig-buyer waits! Back to my world I go, its keen Quick energy And competitions sharp and mean, Its flippancy, And sophistry, And tampering with things unclean; But Glyco waits; he has ten cents; And he has hope, And back of him, antecedents Give him such scope! With his traditions’ affluence I cannot cope!