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.