VISTAS

As I walked through the rumorous streets

Of the wind-rustled, elm-shaded city

Where all of the houses were friends

And the trees were all lovers of her,

The spell of its old enchantment

Was woven again to subdue me

With magic of flickering shadows,

Blown branches and leafy stir.

Street after street, as I passed,

Lured me and beckoned me onward

With memories frail as the odor

Of lilac adrift on the air.

At the end of each breeze-blurred vista

She seemed to be watching and waiting,

With leaf shadows over her gown

And sunshine gilding her hair.

For there was a dream that the kind God

Withheld, while granting us many —

But surely, I think, we shall come

Sometime, at the end, she and I,

To the heaven He keeps for all tired souls,

The quiet suburban gardens

Where He Himself walks in the evening

Beneath the rose-dropping sky

And watches the balancing elm trees

Sway in the early starshine

When high in their murmurous arches

The night breeze ruffles by.