Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HOW PEARL STREET WAS PAVED, by ARTHUR GUITERMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HOW PEARL STREET WAS PAVED, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In wouter van twiller's manorial pale
Last Line: We manage the streets of the city to-day.
Subject(s): Cows; New York City - Dutch Period; Streets; Avenues


IN Wouter Van Twiller's manorial pale
There flourished a cow (and she flourished a tail)
Safe-housed, where the Battery guarded the shore
In kindly communion with many cows more.
Awaking from visions of clover, each morn
She drowsily lowed to the drover whose horn
Was blown at each byre; then, leading the line
Of sleepy New Amsterdam's somnolent kine,
She sauntered with Sukey and Brindle and all
Away to the Common beyond the Town Wall.

The route that she plodded by hillock and stream
Was crookedly quaint as a summer night's dream;
For, though at the start, like an orderly beast,
She skirted the river that flows on the east,
Soon, tempted by boskage and cress of the best,
She rambled and browsed to the north or the west;
Till, trodden each morning and evening, there showed
A devious pathway that wore to a road
Where brick-fronted houses began to appear
To crown the caprice of that "Boss" engineer.
(And this is the cause of the intricate way
The streets of New Amsterdam wander to-day.)

Next, keen for progression, the burghers decreed
The street should be paved with the uttermost speed,
And chose a committee of good men and true
To think out the problem and put the thing through.
Van Bommel, Van keuren, Hans Jacobson Kol,
Claes Tysen, Joost Smeeman, and Huybertsen Mol,
All stout at the trencher and wise in debate,
Held council portentous both early and late.

They grouped on the road at the first flush of dawn
With pipes of tobacco and bowls of suppawn
And dreamed of all pavings that ever were known --
Block, corduroy, cement, gold, mortar, and stone.
And ever they puffed as they pondered, and quaffed,
To clear their perceptions, full many a draught,
And dined on the oysters abounding of yore
In numberless shoals on our fortunate shore.
(The bivalves our fathers deemed worthy of praise
Were giants that mock these degenerate days;
For find me an oyster, in bay, creek, or foss
To-day, that will measure twelve inches across!)

A fortnight they tarried to feast and perpend,
Surveying the road from beginning to end;
When lo! what a mountain of labor was saved;
For, e'en as they feasted, the road had been paved,
And paved for the tread of a prince or an earl
With oyster-shells, brilliant in mother-of-pearl!
So "Pearl" was the name, undeniably meet,
The burghers bestowed on that marvelous street.

'Twas thus that our city's progenitors showed
The very best method of paving a road:
Appoint a committee to dally and doubt
And somehow the matter will work itself out.
So, taught by experience, that is the way
We manage the streets of the city to-day.





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