Down Town

In The Banking District of New York

GEORGE S. CHAPPELL

Down . . . town . . .

The chasms stand,

Rock-ribbed, steel-boned,

Silent and still.

The fret of day

Subsides . . .

The tides that fill

These sombre sluices

Drain away. . . .

Night falls,

But high on granite walls

Gold, from the setting sun,

Flickers . . . and then is gone. . . .

Down town. . . .

Gold!

It is that they seek,

The hungry crowd,

Blatant and bawling,

'Putting' and 'calling',

Shrieking and yelling,

Buying and selling,

The shorts, the longs,

The rights, the wrongs,

Who, with tomorrow's sun

Will re-invade

This sombre shade

Where flows the stream of trade

Amid Pactolean strands

Whose golden sands

Slip from their eager hands

And men arc lost . . . and made . ...

Down town. . . .

Down town. . . .

For one, renown . . .

A palace and a crown . . .

And ermine for his gown,

Paid for by fools

Who drown

Clutching the bauble of a clown. . . .

Down town . . .

Down . . . town . . .

The words toll like a bell

Whose echoes spell

Both Heaven and Hell,

And Gold,

That steals away

Like that which gleams

In this last hour of day. . . .

The gold, of dreams

That winks in the western pane

And then ... is gone again . . .

Gold!

That is the story old, . . .

Down town. . . .