By Mystic's banks I held my dream. <br />(I held my fishing rod as well,) <br />The vision was of dace and bream, <br />A fruitless vision, sooth to tell. <br />But round about the sylvan dell <br />Were other sweet Arcadian shrines, <br />Gone now, is all the rural spell, <br />Arcadia has trolley lines. <br /> <br />Oh, once loved, sluggish, darkling stream, <br />For me no more, thy waters swell, <br />Thy music now the engines' scream, <br />Thy fragrance now the factory's smell; <br />Too near for me the clanging bell; <br />A false light in the water shines <br />While Solitude lists to her knell,-- <br />Arcadia has trolley lines. <br /> <br />Thy wooded lanes with shade and gleam <br />Where bloomed the fragrant asphodel, <br />Now bleak commercially teem <br />With signs 'To Let,' 'To Buy,' 'To Sell.' <br />And Commerce holds them fierce and fell; <br />With vulgar sport she now combines <br />Sweet Nature's piping voice to quell. <br />Arcadia has trolley lines.<br /><br />Paul Laurence Dunbar<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballade-3/
