THE BLIND
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mid the din of cars and automobiles,At the corner of a towering pile of granite,Under the city's soaring brick and stone,Where multitudes go hurrying by, you standWith eyeless sockets playing on a flute.And an old woman holds the cup for you,Wherein a curious passer by at timesCasts a poor coin. You are so blind you cannot see us menAs walking trees!I fancy from the tuneYou play upon the flute, you have a visionOf leafy trees along a country road-side,Where wheat is growing and the meadow-larksRise singing in the sun-shine!In your darknessYou may see such things playing on your fluteHere in the granite ways of mad Chicago! And here's another on a farther corner,With head thrown back as if he searched the skies,He's selling evening papers, what's to himThe flaring headlines? Yet he calls the news.That is his flute, perhaps, for one can call,Or play the flute in blindness. Yet I thinkIt's neither news nor music with these blind ones--Rather the hope of re-created eyes,And a light out of death!"How can it be," I hear them over and over,"There never shall be eyes for me again?" "I PAY MY DEBT FOR LAFAYETTE AND ROCHAMBEAU" --_His Own Words_
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