In the Crowd

HERE in the crowded city’s busy street, Swayed by the eager, jostling, hasting throng, Where Traffic’s voice grows harsher and more strong, I see within the stream of hurrying feet A company of trees in their retreat, Dew-bathed, dream-wrapped, and with a thrush’s song Emparadising all the place, along Whose paths I hear the pulse of Beauty beat. ’Twas yesterday I walked beneath the trees, To-day I tread the city’s stony ways; And still the spell that o’er my spirit came Turns harshest sounds to shy bird ecstasies, Pours scent of pine through murky chimney haze, And gives each careworn face a woodland frame.

BY fields of grass and woodland silences The city’s tumult is encamped around; The jingling, clanging, shrieking fiends of sound Expire within the wide world-circling breeze. The soul amid a multitude of trees, Or grass enveloped on the fragrant ground, Is lifted to its utmost starry round, And listens to celestial harmonies. From this unspeakably divine rebirth, Its sordid life returning shows through rifts How purely spreads the sky, how musical The streams and breezes flow across the earth, How light the tree its fruity load uplifts, How easily the weed is beautiful.