VISTAS

by: Odell Shepard (1884-1967)

      S I walked through the dream-peopled streets
      Of the wind-rustling, 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,
      Releasing like flowery fragrance
      Remembrance and hope 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 gliding 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 last, 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
      With a sob of delight for their beauty,
      And hears through their lofty arches
      The night breeze ruffle by.

"Vistas" is reprinted from Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1915. Ed. William Stanley Braithwaite. New York: Gomme & Marshall, 1915.

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