Plants on the Fire-escapes of the City Slums
Amidst the ragged and the underfed,
The love of beauty raises up its head
In this poor quarter.
Existence struggles
for its daily needs,
Yet want finds time to nourish some few seeds
With sun and water.
Here, potted
red geraniums meet the eyes,
On bits of
string pale morning-glories rise
In grotesque bowers.
With squalid
poverty around begirt,
What moves man's heart to grant
a clod of dirt,
The boon of flowers?
I know not;
yet I know to Beauty's door
The polished
wealthy and the ragged poor
Both come a-knocking
One builds
a garden on his acres wide,
The other in
a single bloom takes pride -
Each heart unlocking.
