Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


A CITY STREET IN SUMMER by LOUIS GINSBERG

First Line: IT STUMBLES, NUMBED AND PROSTRATE
Last Line: WHENCE GOD IS CRYING OUT!
Subject(s): STREETS; SUMMER; AVENUES;

It stumbles, numbed and prostrate,
Drugged with the sticky heat,
This pounded city highway,
This surging city-street.

Perhaps in weary stupor,
It dreams, but all in vain,
To be a drowsy byway,
A straggling country lane.

To listen in the dawning,
To listen, hearing long,
A bird, that drips with sunset,
Uncoil its colored song. . . .

To feel again the fervor
Of earth that leaps through roots
To eloquence of blossoms
And eloquence of fruits.

Till lo, each wayside hedge is
A torch that flares about --
A flaming bush of Beauty,
Whence God is crying out!



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