I Urge My Soul

I urge my soul, and lure it yet again

With music-bland, ineffable, discreet,

But there's no refuge for it save this street

Of haggard prostitutes and homeless men.

Dusk, rainy noon, or clouded morning, when

Its gray length seems to crawl beneath slow feet,

This lane of vagabonds lies strangely sweet

With doleful beauty, sadly sovereign.

My soul finds quiet here. Lost, like a child,

It yet forgets its cruel plight to see

Beggars and drunkards reeling in the wind

Like leaves. It loves the outcast and exiled,

God's own forgotten-these that ceaselessly ;

Flutter like shadows through my vacant mind.

THINK NOT