THE CROWDED STREET.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain.
How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face—
Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.
They pass to toil, to strife, to rest—
To halls in which the feast is spread—
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.
And some to happy homes repair,
Where children pressing cheek to cheek,
With mute caresses shall declare
The tenderness they cannot speak.
And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its light, is seen no more.
Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
And dreams of greatness in thine eye!
Go'st thou to build an early name,
Or early in the task to die?