The Old Apple-Woman
A Broadway Lyric
SHE sits by the side of a turbulent stream
That rushes and rolls forever
Up and down like a weary dream
In the trance of a burning fever.
Up and down through the long Broadway
It flows with its tiresome paces—
Down and up through the noisy day,
A river of feet and of faces.
Seldom a drop of that river’s spray
Touches her withered features;
Yet still she sits there day by day
In the throng of her fellow-creatures.
Apples and cakes and candy to sell,
Daily before her lying.
The ragged newsboys know her well—
The rich never think of buying.
Year in, year out, in her dingy shawl
The wind and the rain she weathers,
Patient and mute at her little stall;
But few are the coppers she gathers.
Still eddies the crowd intent on gain.
Each for himself is striving
With selfish heart and seething brain—
An endless hurry and driving.
The loud carts rattle in thunder and dust;
Gay Fashion sweeps by in its coaches.
With a vacant stare she mumbles her crust,
She is past complaints and reproaches.
Still new faces and still new feet—
The same yet changing forever;
They jostle along through the weary street,
The waves of the human river.
Withered and dry like a leafless bush
That clings to the bank of a torrent,
Year in, year out, in the whirl and the rush,
She sits, of the city’s current.
The shrubs of the garden will blossom again
Though far from the flowing river;
But the spring returns to her in vain—
Its bloom has nothing to give her.
Yet in her heart there buds the hope
Of a Father’s love and pity;
For her the clouded skies shall ope,
And the gates of a heavenly city.
