| Simpler Times |
| Main Street 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 was all covered over with two feet of gleaming 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 about 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 recognize its friends. |
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| There were less than a hundred teams on Main Street in a day, And about that number of 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 seem to make the city street reverberate with pain; But there is still an echo left deep down within my heart Of the music the Main Street cobblestones made beneath a horse and cart. God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky, It's the path some say we'll travel, when it's time for us 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. -- Joyce Kilmer |
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| It's a quiet town, where much of the day, you could stand in the middle of Main Street and not be in anyone's way --- not forever, but for as long as a person would want to stand in the middle of a street. -- Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days |
| Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door, Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store. But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone For the lack of something within it that it has never known. Now a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life, That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife, A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet, Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet. So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track, I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back; Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart, For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart. -- Joyce Kilmer |
| Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track, I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black. I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute and look at the house, the sad old house, the house with nobody in it. I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things; That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings. I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do; For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two. This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass, And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass. It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied; But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside. |
| How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green, where humble happiness endear'd each scene; How often have I paus'd on every charm, the shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm. The never-failing brook, the busy mill, the decent church that topp'd the neighboring hill, The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, for talking age and whisp'ring lovers made! -- Oliver Goldsmith |
| There are hermit souls that live withdrawn in the place of their self content, There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart, in a fellowless firmament; There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths where highways never ran, But let me live by the side of the road and be a friend to man. Let me live in my house by the side of the road, where the race of men go by, They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, wise, foolish - so am I; Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat, or hurl the cynic's ban? Let me live in my house by the side of the road and be a friend to man. -- Samuel Walter Foss |
| Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea; And often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town, And my youth comes back to me! -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
| Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. Home, home, sweet, sweet home! Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. -- J. H. Payne |
| Music: Memory in My Mind Journal Index The Past Whispers-Home My G-Grandfather's Attic-Home |
| We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results. -- Herman Melville |
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