We mar the earth, our modern toil
Defaces old and lovely things;
We soil the stream, we cannot soil
The brightness of Life’s fountain springs.
Here where man’s last progressive aim
Has stamped the green earth with the brand
Of want and greed, and put to shame
Her beauty, and we see the land
With mine and factory and street
Deformed, and filled with dreary lives,—
Here, too, Life’s fountain springs are sweet:
Our venture fails, God’s hope survives.
And in the heart of every child
Born in this brick horizon ring
The flowers of wonderland grow wild,
The birds of El Dorado sing.
FIRST PATHWAYS
Where were the pathways that your childhood knew?—
In mountain glens? or by the ocean strands?
Or where, beyond the ripening harvest land,
The distant hills were blue?
Where evening sunlight threw a golden haze
Over a mellow city’s walls and towers?
Or where the fields and lanes were bright with flowers,
In quiet woodland ways?
And whether here or there, or east or west,
That place you dwelt in first was holy ground;
Its shelter was the kindest you have found,
Its pathways were the best.
And even in the city’s smoke and mire
I doubt not that a golden light was shed
On those first paths, and that they also led
To lands of heart’s desire.
And where the children in dark alleys penned,
Heard the caged lark sing of the April hills,
Or where they dammed the muddy gutter rills,
Or made a dog their friend;
Or where they gathered, dancing hand in hand,
About the organ man, for them, too, lay
Beyond the dismal alley’s entrance way,
The gates of wonderland.