Charles Hanson Towne

THERE are green islands in the city sea,

Where all day long, the endless, passionate waves

Beat, yet destroy not; and their quiet saves

How many a heart grown sick with memory!

Not derelicts alone are foundered there,

But children with the laughter of the May—

Bright living flowers—in these glad gardens play,

Knowing, yet knowing not, the town’s despair!

God made the ocean, where tumultuously

The loud storms burst; and Babylon he made;

Yet all the hills are His, dim valley and glade—

There are green islands in the city sea.