Dorothy Dudley

I HAVE seen an old street weeping—

Narrow, dark, ascending;

Water o’er the spires

Of a church descending;

The church thrice veiled—in rain,

In the shadow of the years,

In the grace of old design;

Dim dwellings, blind with tears,

Rotting either side

The winding passage way,

To where the river crosses

Weeping, under gray

And limpid heavens weeping.

Gardens I have seen

Through archèd doors, whose gratings

Ever cry the keen

Dim melodies of lace

Long used and rare, gardens

With an old-time grace

Vibrating, dimly trembling

In the music of the rain.

Roses I have seen drip a faint

Perfume, and lilacs train

A quivering loveliness

From door to archèd door,

Passing by in flower carts;

While waters ever pour

O’er the white stones of the fountain,

Melting icily away

Half way up the mountain;

Where to mingle tears with tears,

Their clothes misshapen, sobbing,

Two or three old women,

In wooden sabots hobbling,

Meet to fill their pitchers,

From the stream of water leaping

Through the lips, a long time parted,

Of a face grotesquely weeping—

A carven face forever weeping.