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| THE SHABBY street-cars jingling go | |
| Where modish coach-wheels rolled and ran, | |
| And back here from the roaring Row | |
| That leads from Beekman Street to Ann, | |
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| En route to sup at Philip Hone’s | 5 |
| And quiz our New World belles and beaux, | |
| Her feet tripped o’er these very stones— | |
| Fair Kemble. And thy magic toes, | |
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| Thou fairer Fanny, Ellsler named, | |
| Twinkled adown the pavement drear, | 10 |
| While (for thy lissome sake defamed) | |
| Followed—with wraps—thy Chevalier. | |
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| A gown of white, a girlish form, | |
| Footsteps unused that trembling pause! | |
| ’Tis Garcia, frightened by the storm | 15 |
| Of this, her début night’s applause. | |
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| Again, oh, crinoline and mitts! | |
| Oh, blue and brass with ruffles dight! | |
| A decorous mob of worthy cits— | |
| The ball to “Boz” is at its height. | 20 |
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| ’Tis Theatre Alley, yet its name | |
| They’ve spared. A squalid place by day, | |
| Where wrangling boys for coppers game, | |
| Where sottish vagrants snooze or stray. | |
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| But when the sun shines slant and low | 25 |
| O’er Trinity’s subduing vane, | |
| Vanish these sordid shapes, and so | |
| The alley grows itself again. | |
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| And when the dusk in deeper gloom | |
| Is whelmed, and o’er the flag-stones damp, | 30 |
| As if the old stage-door to ’lume, | |
| Glimmers that lonely, midway lamp. | |
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| These dear, dead ladies, they that thrilled | |
| The gay world of the “old Park’s” time, | |
| Are with me, and—a vow fulfilled— | 35 |
| To their sweet manes this light rhyme. | |
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