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Home  »  The Book of New York Verse  »  Dana Burnet

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

Roses in the Subway

Dana Burnet

A WAN-CHEEKED girl with faded eyes

Came stumbling down the crowded car,

Clutching her burden to her breast

As though she held a star.

Roses, I swear it! Red and sweet

And struggling from her pinched white hands,

Roses … like captured hostages

From far and fairy lands!

The thunder of the rushing train

Was like a hush … The flower scent

Breathed faintly on the stale, whirled air

Like some dim sacrament—

I saw a garden stretching out

And morning on it like a crown—

And o’er a bed of crimson bloom

My mother … stooping down.