Читать книгу The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 16, February, 1859 - Various - Страница 2

  I walk alone the Morning Street,

  Filled with the silence strange and sweet:

  All seems as lone, as still, as dead,

  As if unnumbered years had fled,

  Letting the noisy Babel be

  Without a breath, a memory.

  The light wind walks with me, alone,

  Where the hot day like flame was blown;

  Where the wheels roared and dust was beat,

  The dew is in the Morning Street.

  Where are the restless throngs that pour

  Along this mighty corridor

  While the noon flames? the hurrying crowd

  Whose footsteps make the city loud?

  The myriad faces? hearts that beat

  No more in the deserted street?—

  Those footsteps, in their dream-land maze,

  Cross thresholds of forgotten days;

  Those faces brighten from the years

  In morning suns long set in tears;

  Those hearts—far in the Past they beat—

  Are singing in their Morning Street.

  A city 'gainst the world's gray Prime,

  Lost in some desert, far from Time,

  Where noiseless Ages, gliding through,

  Have only sifted sands and dew,

  Were not more lone to one who first

  Upon its giant silence burst,

  Than this strange quiet, where the tide

  Of life, upheaved on either side,

  Hangs trembling, ready soon to beat

  With human waves the Morning Street.

  Ay, soon the glowing morning flood

  Pours through this charmèd solitude;

  All silent now, this Memnon-stone

  Will murmur to the rising sun;

  The busy life this vein shall beat,—

  The rush of wheels, the swarm of feet;

  The Arachne-threads of Purpose stream

  Unseen within the morning gleam;

  The Life will move, the Death be plain;

  The bridal throng, the funeral train,

  Together in the crowd will meet,

  And pass along the Morning Street.