The Market-Place

My mind is like a clamorous market-place.

   All day in wind, rain, sun, its babel wells;

   Voice answering to voice in tumult swells.   

Chaffering and laughing, pushing for a place,

My thoughts haste on, gay, strange, poor, simple, base;

   This one buys dust, and that a bauble sells:

   But none to any scrutiny hints or tells

The haunting secrets hidden in each sad face.

The clamour quietens when the dark draws near;

   Strange looms the earth in twilight of the West,   

Lonely with one sweet star serene and clear,

   Dwelling, when all this place is hushed to rest,

   On vacant stall, gold, refuse, worst and best,   

Abandoned utterly in haste and fear.