(Tenements on either side -- menacing they stand --
Light-flecked in the softness of the late spring
weather. . . .
But young love and broken life are standing close
together,
And all a city slum is out to listen to the band.)



III. THE ORGAN MAN

He's very old, his music box is old and rusty, too,
And half the notes of it are harsh, and half of
them are slow;
One wonders if the coat he wears could ever have
been new --
And if the tune he plays was quite forgotten long
ago.

He finds a sunny place to stand, and lifts his bleary
eyes,
And smiles a bit -- a toothless smile half touched,
perhaps, with fear;
And though he cannot see them he is looking at the
skies,
As if he prays, but silently, for hope and faith
and cheer.

The foreign women pass him by, their tarnished coins