There have been times when on a city street
—Where I had seen not any face I know,
The eyes of some met mine as if to greet
—Me with a friendly word, a mute “hello.”

But each is bound by laws of etiquette;
—We may not speak the words our lips would say;
So we pass on with faces firmly set—
—We fear to change the old, established way.

There have been times when on a city street
—Where I had seen not any face I know,
The eyes of some met mine as if to greet
—Me with a friendly word, a mute “hello.”

But each is bound by laws of etiquette;
—We may not speak the words our lips would say;
So we pass on with faces firmly set—
—We fear to change the old, established way.