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Home  »  The Book of New York Verse  »  Bliss Carman

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

On the Plaza

Bliss Carman

ONE August day I sat beside

A café window open wide

To let the shower-freshened air

Blow in across the Plaza, where

In golden pomp against the dark

Green leafy background of the Park,

St. Gaudens’ hero, gaunt and grim,

Rides on with victory leading him.

The wet, black asphalt seemed to hold

In every hollow pools of gold,

And clouds of gold and pink and grey

Were piled up at the end of day,

Far down the cross street, where one tower

Still glistened from the drenching shower.

A weary white-haired man went by,

Cooling his forehead gratefully

After the day’s great heat. A girl,

Her thin white garments in a swirl

Blown back against her breasts and knees,

Like a Winged Victory in the breeze,

Alive and modern and superb,

Crossed from the circle to the curb.

We sat there watching people pass,

Clinking the ice against the glass,

And talking idly—books or art,

Or something equally apart

From the essential stress and strife

That rudely form and further life,

Glad of a respite from the heat,

When down the middle of the street,

Trundling a hurdy-gurdy, gay

In spite of the dull stifling day,

Three street-musicians came. The man,

With hair and beard as black as Pan,

Strolled on one side with lordly grace,

While a young girl tugged at a trace

Upon the other. And between

The shafts there walked a laughing queen,

Bright as a poppy, strong and free.

What likelier land than Italy

Breeds such abandon? Confident

And rapturous in mere living spent

Each moment to the utmost, there

With broad, deep chest and kerchiefed hair,

With head thrown back, bare throat, and waist

Supple, heroic, and free-laced,

Between her two companions walked

This splendid woman, chaffed and talked,

Did half the work, made all the cheer

Of that small company.

No fear

Of failure in a soul like hers

That every moment throbs and stirs

With merry ardor, virile hope,

Brave effort, nor in all its scope

Has room for thought or discontent,

Each day its own sufficient vent

And source of happiness.

Without

A trace of bitterness or doubt

Of life’s true worth, she strode at ease

Before those empty palaces

A simple heiress of the earth,

And all its joys by happy birth,

Beneficent as breeze or dew,

As fresh as though the world were new

And toil and grief were not. How rare

A personality was there!