Gone are the flags and drums of that great fight,
No more they swink with rocks and autumn rains;
And only girders, rising tier on tier,
Give hint of all the struggle that was here.

We too, mad zealots of the hardest craft,
Striving to build a word-house fair and tall,
Have wept to see our dear erections fall;
Have wept--then flung away our tools, and laughed.
Fled is the dream, but working year by year
We see our buildings rising, tier on tier.

THE MADONNA OF THE CURB

On the curb of a city pavement,
By the ash and garbage cans,
In the stench and rolling thunder
Of motor trucks and vans,
There sits my little lady,
With brave but troubled eyes,
And in her arms a baby
That cries and cries and cries.

She cannot be more than seven;
But years go fast in the slums,
And hard on the pains of winter
The pitiless summer comes.
The wail of sickly children
She knows; she understands
The pangs of puny bodies,
The clutch of small hot hands.

In the deadly blaze of August,
That turns men faint and mad,
She quiets the peevish urchins
By telling a dream she had--
A heaven with marble counters,
And ice, and a singing fan;
And a God in white, so friendly,
Just like the drug-store man.

Her ragged dress is dearer
Than the perfect robe of a queen!
Poor little lass, who knows not
The blessing of being clean.
And when you are giving millions
To Belgian, Pole and Serb,
Remember my pitiful lady--
Madonna of the Curb!

MY PIPE

My pipe is old
And caked with soot;
My wife remarks:
"How can you put
That horrid relic,
So unclean,
Inside your mouth?
The nicotine
Is strong enough
To stupefy
A Swedish plumber."
I reply:

"This is the kind
Of pipe I like:
I fill it full
Of Happy Strike,
Or Barking Cat
Or Cabman's Puff,
Or Brooklyn Bridge
(That potent stuff)
Or Chaste Embraces,
Knacker's Twist,
Old Honeycomb
Or Niggerfist.

I clamp my teeth
Upon its stem--
It is my bliss,
My diadem.
Whatever Fate
May do to me,
This is my favourite
B
B B.
For this dear pipe
You feign to scorn
I smoked the night
The boy was born."

TO A GRANDMOTHER