V
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
These morning streets, the lawns of windy grass,
And spires that wear the sunlight like a crown,
The square where busy, happy people pass:
The living soul that lights the little Town,—
These have been shining beauty for my mind,
And joy, and friendship, and a tale to tell,
And these have been a presence that is kind,
A quiet music and a healing well.
Men who were lovers in the olden time,
Who praised the beauty of bright hair and brow,
And left a little monument of rhyme,—
Wrought not more tenderly than I would, now,
To turn some changing syllables of praise
For her whose quiet beauty fills my days.
VI
THE TOWNSMAN
Here would I leave some subtle part of me,
A moving presence through the friendly Town,
Abiding still, and happy still to be
Where thoughtful men pass daily up and down;—
An essence stirring on the ways they fare,
Haunting the drifted sunlight where they go,
Till one might mark a Something on the air,
Most near and kind—though why, he would not know.
Happy, if it may chance, where two shall meet,
Pausing to pass the friendly, idle word,
In the hushed twilight of the evening street,
I might stand by, a secret, silent Third,—
Most happy listener, if I hear them tell
How, with the Town—and them—it still is well.