The avenue of willows leads nowhere:
it begins at the blank wall of a new apartment house
and ends in the middle of a lot for sale.
Papers and cans are thrown about the trees.
The disorder does not touch the flowing branches;
but the trees have become small among the new houses,
and will be cut down;
their beauty cannot save them.

A star rides the twilight now,
all heaven to itself.

The shadow that does not leave my feet,
how shrunken now it lies;
with sunshine I am anointed king,
I leap before the ark, I sing;
I seem to walk but I dance about,
you think me silent but I shout.

How miserly this bush is:
why do you crouch behind a fence,
holding on to your little copper leaves?
Have you no faith in spring?

The asphalt winds in and out
about the trees, the lawns, the lake;
a thousand lights shine among the trees,
and in the circles underneath
the grass is brightly green;
but all these lights do not warm the wind.

I charge you, lips and teeth,
keep watch upon my tongue:
silence is legal tender everywhere.

He had a rich uncle who sent him to a university and would have taken him into the firm; but he went off and married a girl, the men of whose family were truckmen.
His uncle would have nothing to do with him, and he became a cigar pedlar; but his wife was beautiful.
Even after she had borne children and had had to drudge and scrimp all her married life, whenever she came to his lodge ball, men and women turned to look at her.

His uncle died and left him a little money. And just in time, because he was growing too old to walk around at his business the way he had to.

Swiftly the dawn became day. I went into the street.
Loudly and cheerfully the sparrows chirped.
The street-lamps were still lit, the sky pale and brightening.
Hidden in trees and on the roofs,
loudly and cheerfully the sparrows chirped.

We children used to cross the orchard, the brown earth covered with little green apples,
into the field beyond;
the grass came up over our knees,
there were so many flowers we did not care to pick any —
daisies and yellow daisies, goldenrod and buttercups.
It was so hot the field smelt of cake baking.

This noise in the subway will sound no louder than the wind in trees;
you, too, will be used to it. After a while you will forget to care
whether you ride in subways or on horses.