The People Of The Shadow Street

Ah, long and narrow is Shadow Street,
Where the sunlight never can fall;
Whose mile after mile can but repeat
The crumbling house and the broken wall;
The marsh beyond and the cypress trees
A misty veil and a sombre pall.
Over its lichened pavements, see
The people of Shadow Street creep,
They seem so like unto you and me,
As they stare or frown or weep;
But they're something more or something less,
And their eyes are dim as with sleep.
They think they are live and wide awake,
They are busy with dreams long dead.
Their hurrying feet no progress make,
And their clocks tell time that has fled.
They are planning the triumphs of yesterday,
They are coining the words long said.
They toil and moil, they rhyme and they sing;
But none of the other takes heed.
Their hopes are ravens on weary wing
That out of their hearts they feed:
Each man and woman in twilight blur
Clasps tightly a mildewed weed.
This corner house on the Market Square
Is the place where they first abide.
They climb one morn up its creaking stair,
And by dusk steal out at the side.
They come, pushed out of the pulsing town,
And so into Shadow Street glide.
From house after house, from day to day,
They move when the night has paled;
Thin and grizzled and farther away,
And by many a pang assailed.
They pass at last neath the cypress trees,
And they never know they have failed.