Charles Hanson Towne Poems

Playing on Sixth Avenue

Here's to you, brave Hurdy-gurdy,
Grinding out your happy tune
...

One told me he had heard it whispered: 'Lo!
The hour has come when Europe, desperate
With sudden war and terrible swift hate,
...

Toward that sweet city where the Virgin mild
Brought forth her Child
Fain would I turn upon this Christmas day,
And softly pray
...

Hoof-beats thundering on the paves,
Wagons crashing by.
(But O I dream of distant waves,
God's tent of open sky!)
...

How shall I know her, God, in that great world,
After the grief of this is past and gone?
How shall I know her when our souls are hurled
...

I.

Long had I dwelt with sad-faced Grief. Her tears
Were my one gift thro’ dim and silent years.
...

Flash of steel and crash of drum--
Love that way has never come.
But adown some quiet night
She has winged her silent flight,
...

High on the hills, the miser, Autumn sits,
Hoarding his wondrous wealth of treasured gold;
Yet in the night I hear his grieving voice
...

The lilies whisper in the park,
Pale watchers in the heavy night,
Wan ghosts that haunt the fragrant dark.
...

I thought my heart would break
Because the Spring was slow.
I said, 'How long young April sleeps
Beneath the snow!'
...