Brick Horizons

Here the old map a woodland marks, With rivers winding through the hills; And prints remain of spacious parks, And gabled farms and watermills.

But now we see no fields to reap, No flowers to welcome sun and rain: The hillside is a cinder heap, The river is an inky drain.

The modern town of red brick streets, Row beyond row, and shelf on shelf, On one side spreads until it meets A town as dreary as itself; And on the other side its arms Of road and tramway are out-thrust, And mutilate the fields and farms, And shame the woods with noise and dust.

Here, from the scenes we love remote, Dwell half the toilers of the land,-- The soul we think of as a vote, The heart we speak of as a hand.

Dull sons of a mechanic age Who claim but miss the rights of man,-- They have no dreams beyond their cage, They know not of the haunts of Pan.

Here, wandering through mills and mines And dreary streets each like the last, Enclosed by brick horizon lines, I found an island of the past.

A few sad fields, a few old trees, In that new world of grime and smoke Told me the time was springtime; these Alone remembered and awoke.

And in the grass were stars and bells, The immemorial blossomings That spring to greet us from the wells Of Beauty at the heart of things.

A lark sang overhead, its note Had the same joy with which it fills The morning, when we hear it float Through crystal air on thymy hills.

We mar the earth, our modern toil Defaces old and lovely things; We soil the stream, we cannot soil The brightness of Life’s fountain springs.

Here where man’s last progressive aim Has stamped the green earth with the brand Of want and greed, and put to shame Her beauty, and we see the land

With mine and factory and street Deformed, and filled with dreary lives,-- Here, too, Life’s fountain springs are sweet: Our venture fails, God’s hope survives.

And in the heart of every child Born in this brick horizon ring The flowers of wonderland grow wild, The birds of El Dorado sing.