Beneath the smokeless sky.

There's MINNIE in the cradle,
And TOMMY on the floor,
And JOHNNY with a ladle
Is banging on the door;
And, where the household linen dries,
Cross little ANNIE sits and cries
As loud as she can roar.

About the street the children sprawl,
Or on the door-steps sit;
The women, gay with kerchief-shawl,
Engage the men with wit,
Who lounge at ease against the wall,
And meditate and spit.

So through the Summer Sunday hours
The sunbeams slowly steal,
Gilding the beer-shop's saw-dust bowers,
The cabbage-stalks in lieu of flowers,
The trodden orange-peel,
Till, calm as heaven, the moon appears,
A Sister in a house of tears,
Who soothes, but cannot heal.

And now the cheap excursionists
Come, tired and happy, home,
And hear amid the noisy streets
The churning of the foam.