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Main Street, and Other Poems

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<h1> MAIN STREET AND OTHER POEMS </h1> <h2> by Alfred Joyce Kilmer </h2> <h4> [Alfred Joyce Kilmer, American (New Jersey & New York) Poet — 1886-1918.] </h4> <h4> [A number of these poems originally appeared in various periodicals.] </h4> <h2> To Mrs. Edmund Leamy </h2> <hr /> <blockquote> <big>CONTENTS</big> <big>MAIN STREET AND OTHER POEMS</big> 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 </blockquote> <hr /> <h1> MAIN STREET AND OTHER POEMS </h1> <h2> Main Street </h2> <h3> (For S. M. L.) </h3> 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. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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