Main Street and Other Poems by Joyce Kilmer
[Alfred Joyce Kilmer, American (New Jersey & New York) Poet -- 1886-1918.]
[Note on text: There were no significant italics in this text. Lines longer than 75 characters have been broken according to metre, and the continuation is indented two spaces. This etext was transcribed from a 1917 (original) edition.]
To Mrs. Edmund Leamy
[A number of these poems originally appeared in various periodicals.]
Contents
Main Street Roofs The Snowman in the Yard A Blue Valentine Houses In Memory Apology The Proud Poet Lionel Johnson Father Gerard Hopkins, S. J. Gates and Doors The Robe of Christ The Singing Girl The Annunciation Roses The Visitation Multiplication Thanksgiving The Thorn The Big Top Queen Elizabeth Speaks Mid-ocean in War-time In Memory of Rupert Brooke The New School Easter Week The Cathedral of Rheims Kings The White Ships and the Red
Main Street and Other Poems
Main Street
(For S. M. L.)
I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea, But it isn't half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be When it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow, And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs would go.
Now, Main Street bordered with autumn leaves, it was a pleasant thing, And its gutters were gay with dandelions early in the Spring; I like to think of it white with frost or dusty in the heat, Because I think it is humaner than any other street.
A city street that is busy and wide is ground by a thousand wheels, And a burden of traffic on its breast is all it ever feels: It is dully conscious of weight and speed and of work that never ends, But it cannot be human like Main Street, and recognise its friends.
There were only about a hundred teams on Main Street in a day, And twenty or thirty people, I guess, and some children out to play. And there wasn't a wagon or buggy, or a man or a girl or a boy That Main Street didn't remember, and somehow seem to enjoy.
The truck and the motor and trolley car and the elevated train They make the weary city street reverberate with pain: But there is yet an echo left deep down within my heart Of the music the Main Street cobblestones made beneath a butcher's cart.
God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky, That's the path that my feet would tread whenever I have to die. Some folks call it a Silver Sword, and some a Pearly Crown, But the only thing I think it is, is Main Street, Heaventown.
Roofs
(For Amelia Josephine Burr)
The road is wide and the stars are out and the breath of the night is sweet, And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet. But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my face, And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors for a human dwelling place.
I never have seen a vagabond who really liked to roam All up and down the streets of the world and not to have a home: The tramp who slept in your barn last night and left at break of day Will wander only until he finds another place to stay.
A gypsy-man will sleep in his cart with canvas overhead; Or else he'll go into his tent when it is time for bed. He'll sit on the grass and take his ease so long as the sun is high, But when it is dark he wants a roof to keep away the sky.
If you call a gypsy a vagabond, I think you do him wrong, For he never goes a-travelling but he takes his home along. And the only reason a road is good, as every wanderer knows, Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which it goes.
