Main Street
(For S. M. L.)
I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea, But it
isn\'t half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be When it all was covered
over with a couple of feet of snow, And over the crisp and radiant road the
ringing sleighs would go.
Now, Main Street bordered with autumn leaves, it was a pleasant thing,
And its gutters were gay with dandelions early in the Spring; I like to think
of it white with frost or dusty in the heat, Because I think it is humaner
than any other street.
A city street that is busy and wide is ground by a thousand wheels,
And a burden of traffic on its breast is all it ever feels: It is dully conscious
of weight and speed and of work that never ends, But it cannot be human
like Main Street, and recognise its friends.
There were only about a hundred teams on Main Street in a day, And
twenty or thirty people, I guess, and some children out to play. And there
wasn\'t a wagon or buggy, or a man or a girl or a boy That Main Street
didn\'t remember, and somehow seem to enjoy.
The truck and the motor and trolley car and the elevated train They
make the weary city street reverberate with pain: But there is yet an echo
left deep down within my heart Of the music the Main Street cobblestones
made beneath a butcher\'s cart.
God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky, That\'s the
path that my feet would tread whenever I have to die. Some folks call it a
Silver Sword, and some a Pearly Crown, But the only thing I think it is, is
Main Street, Heaventown.