Clifford Franklin Gessler

From “The Villager”

INASMUCH as I love you

And shall know no peace more unless I am near you,

Though you are a flame of will

Proud and variable as you are beautiful and dear—

Nevertheless I will go your way,

Since you will not go mine.

Therefore, although the cool roads of my village

Are more pleasant to me than the pavements of your city;

Although its dim streets are more kindly than your glaring arcs;

Though the unhurried voices of my townspeople

Are more friendly music in my ears than the screamings

And glib chatter of your city-dwellers:

Nevertheless I will go down with you into the city

And bruise my heart upon its bricks;

Become brother to its shrieking “elevated”

And learn to hurry away my days in this brief world

Among the grimy roofs that soil the clean young sunshine;

Thinking only at long whiles, in summer dusks,

Of hushed paths where hurrying feet have never trodden,

Of cool lanes white in the splendor of the rising moon.