Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BALLAD OF CHRISTOPHER STREET, by FLOYD DELL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BALLAD OF CHRISTOPHER STREET, by                    
First Line: Is it still there, I wonder, down in christopher street
Last Line: Eleven christopher street.
Subject(s): Change; Christopher Street, New York City; Greenwich Village, New York City; Time; Youth


"Is it still there, I wonder, down in Christopher
Street,
That little rickety house of ours where life was
young and sweet?"
No, my dear, they've torn it down, a year and
a day ago;
There's nothing there but an empty lot where
the purple burdocks grow.
The wreckers came, and spat on their hands, and
gave it a final thrust,
And the roof fell into the cellar, and the walls
went up in dust!
The boys have carried away the boards to kindle
their mothers' fires,
And over the moldering fragments creep bur-
docks and briers.
So it will stay for a year and a day: and then
some morning soon,
Builders will come, with riveters, and rivet loud
till noon,
And call it a day, and go away, leaving against
the sky
A great brand-new apartment-building fourteen
stories high.
And women with dogs, and men with cars, will
quarrel and sleep and eat,
After the fashion of their kind, at Eleven Christopher Street.
For the lays that we knew are dead, my dear,
and never in all time's turning
Shall there burn in the hearts of Christopher
Street the fires that we felt burning
When in that little house of ours life still stayed
young and sweet
Though all the world was bitter-black outside of
Christopher Street,
And those four rickety walls of ours gave love
and kindness room
When all mankind was mad and blind and raging
to its doom!

0, in that big apartment-building up against the
sky
There'll be lovers, lovers, lovers—never you
and I!
It will not matter to them in the least, if out
of the dust and grime
Impossible beauty flamed and flowered, once upon
a time!
If a boy and a girl for a year and a day laughed
bravely at despair,
No one will know in Christopher Street, and certainly none will care.
But you and I, shall we ever forget, till our hearts
forget to beat,
The year and a day of life in flower that we had
in Christopher Street?

Wakened by the jingling-harnessed, trampling
teams from next-door's stable,
Lingering late in happy laughter over the bright
breakfast table,
Sharing every secret fancy, finding courage and
delight
In each other's jests and kisses, sitting up all
hours of night
In deep talk before the fireplace—happy that we
could remember
One more lovely story always to outlast the final
ember!
Then kisses in the darkness, laughter in the night,
And a white moon rising over the roofs to look
on our delight!
Blood-madness was upon mankind: two sane
ones, you and I
Could laugh and talk and dream, and let the
legions thunder by!
All that was ever good in life, all that was ever
sweet,
Kept house with us for a year and a day in Eleven
Christopher Street.
A painted cupboard on the wall, colored cups and
dishes—
Tulip-garden crockery to match our happiest
wishes!—
A Japanese print, and a candlestick, with candles
burning bright,
Curtain-folds of sunny gold at windows left and
right,
A couch with tattered tapestry, a cigarette-
scarred table,
A view from either window of an alley and a
stable,
Ash-trays scattered round about in all the likely
nooks,
And everywhere, on shelf and chair—books,
books, books!
Brave poetry, radiant science, mockery's gayest
flights,
Books full of rebel courage and wisdoms and
delights—
Though all the world was loud with lies, and guns
boomed down the truth,
They spoke the things that none might speak to
the listening mind of youth,
They told the truth of an evil time to a lonely girl
and boy,
Saying: Be scornful of the world, but have no
scorn of joy!
So they spoke in the little house by flickering
candle-flame
To a grave-browed girl with dancing eyes and
a boy that bore my name.
With books and dishes, fire and a bed, the heart's
deep needs were there—
A garden it was, and a palace, and a fortress
against despair!

I remember the way we found it, when our love
was fire-new,
And we were troubled, and bold, and shy, wondering what to do;
Night after night we had walked the streets,
through blasts of wind and snow,
Wanting a place to call our own, a roof to sleep
below—
And some folks thought it funny, and laughed
aloud to spy
Huddling close in doorways, two lovers, you and
I!
Pooling our desperate fortunes, all we could
scrape together,
We sought to find our love four walls against the
bitter weather;
We only hoped for an eyrie high over the street's
abyss,
A room for two, where we'd have the right to
laugh and talk and kiss;
Ah! happy the chance that led us, at last, with
tired feet,
Across the snowy door-sill of Eleven Christopher
Street.
We stood by the little fireplace, and in each other's
eyes
We watched the bright tears welling up in wonder and surprise.
Here we knew was a home for us, and not for
us too narrow—
We furnished the place from a junk-shop quick
and moved in a big wheelbarrow!
And I tacked up my Japanese print, while you,
with your candles lit,
Sat on the tattered-tapestried couch and laughed
for the joy of it.
The logs were ablaze in the fireplace, the coffee
was bubbling in the pot,
And your eyes in the mellow candle-light some
deep new radiance got.
Soon you knelt to tend the fire, and I glimpsed
through a half-shut door
Your dresses flung across a chair, your slippers
on the floor.
And so may all dear lovers that are starved for
love's delight
Find rest and peace, and food and fire, and a kind
bed at night!
In that big apartment-building underneath the
moon,
Something of our love may linger, like a ghostly
tune;
Troubled wives will wake at midnight, hearing
from the rafter
Thin and faint, the silver echoes of delicious
laughter.
At these glimmering hints and shadowings of our
lost delight
They will frown and they will wonder, in the
haunted night;
Tossing on their pillows while the midnight
minutes creep,
They will think about love, a little—and then go
back to sleep.
And over their lawful slumbers, in silvery disdain,
Your airy mocking laughter will chime through
the night again.
For who would ever have dared to dream, in the
days that were so sweet,
That love could be dull and expensive at Eleven
Christopher Street!
(Oh, it's little we asked of the niggard fates that
ruled our vagabond life—
Only a time for tenderness out of the bitter
strife!
The endless burgeonings of love, its calm perennial flowers,
We might not claim, in a world like this, for
driven hearts like ours;
Rash, rebel children of our time, wild lovers of
lost truth,
We might not make the immemorial promises of
youth—
Yet we believed that ours was love, so sweet it
was and gay,
The passionate, kind comradeship that we had
for a year and a day!
No—it wasn't the prosperous love that builds
men s cities and makes men's wars,
But it gave peace to a lonely two beneath the
eternal stars.
And the loud, proud makers of cities and wars,
when they have counted the cost,
Shall they dare to call this love of ours too law-
less and too lost?)

It stands no more in the sight of men, in the traffic's roar and beat,
The little rickety house of ours where life was
young and sweet;
There's nothing left but an empty lot, and a stray
board, and a brick,
And—you've the Japanese print, my dear, and
I've the candlestick;
The world is wide, with many a path that's
pleasant to the feet,
But none that will ever turn back again to Eleven
Christopher Street;
Time has triumphed, and earth's deep dust has
claimed its ancient right
To be enriched with our memories of laughter and
delight;
There's nothing to do, there's nothing to say—
except that life was sweet
To a boy and a girl for a year and a day in
Eleven Christopher Street.




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