THE sunshine yet on Wooster Square Is bright as years and years ago; The elms are taller, greener there: But Fashion's favor changeth so! The glooming Grecian portico, The ancient, marred, much-trodden stair Forgets the days of long-ago, Forgets the days of Wooster Square. The old white church in Wooster Square Where godly people met and prayed -- Dear souls! they worship Mary there, Italian mother, man and maid In gaudy Southern scarfs arrayed; The horrid candles smoulder where The godly people met and prayed. Alas! the fall of Wooster Square! Before the war, in Wooster Square The carriages, they went and came; The common folk used wait and stare, They bowed to beauty and to Fame. And then it ceased to be the same; The doors are tarnished all and bare Where shone each old Colonial name Departed now from Wooster Square. O Fashion, fled from Wooster Square And tripping fast up Prospect Hill Where orioles flame through fragrant air, Where daisies light the roadside still, What was it changed your flighty will, What fickle fancy made you care To take the way of Prospect Hill, To leave the walls of Wooster Square? @3Be done, be done, with tiresome rhymes! I go with Fortune and the Fair, I owe no love to bygone times -- Peace to the shades of Wooster Square!@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE by EZRA POUND IN LAMPLIGHT by MARTIN DONISTHORPE ARMSTRONG SAINT MAY: A CITY LYRIC by JOSEPH ASHBY-STERRY DINNER by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON |