Queen of all streets, Fifth Avenue
Stretches her slender limbs
From the great Arch of Triumph, on,--
On, where the distance dims
The splendors of her jewelled robes,
Her granite draperies;
The magic, sunset-smitten walls
That veil her marble knees;
For ninety squares she lies a queen,
Superb, bare, unashamed,
Yielding her beauty scornfully
To worshippers unnamed.
But at her feet her sister glows,
A daughter of the South:
Squalid, immeasurably mean,--
But oh! her hot, sweet mouth!
My Thompson Street! a Tuscan girl,
Hot with life's wildest blood;
Her black shawl on her black, black hair,
Her brown feet stained with mud;
A scarlet blossom at her lips,
A new babe at her breast;
A singer at a wine-shop door,
(Her lover unconfessed).
Listen! a hurdy-gurdy plays--
Now alien melodies:
She smiles, she cannot quite forget
The mother over-seas.
But she no less is mine alone,
Mine, mine!... Who may I be?
Have _I_ betrayed her from her home?
I am called Liberty!