THE WORLD IS WIDE

The world is wide — around yon court,

Where dirty little children play,

Another world of street on street

Grows wide and wider every day.

And round the town for endless miles

A great strange land of green is spread —

O wide the world, O weary-wide,

But it is wider overhead.

For could you mount yon glittering stairs

And on their topmost turret stand,—

Still endless shining courts and squares,

And lanes of lamps on every hand.

And, might you tread those starry streets

To where those long perspectives bend,

O you would cast you down and die —

Street upon street, world without end.