Samuel McCoy

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!