Main Street by Moonlight by Edwina Stanton Babcock

The old church clock strikes one, and down the row / Of ancient houses where the moonlight floods, / The black tree branches move like wands that throw / A net of woven loopings flecked with buds. / The night is still, a silver quiet now / Transforms the plain old homes whose ancient mood / Returns; through panelled doorways come and go / Figures soft shod, in prim calash and hood; / Here by a lilac bush the little gate / Supports two figures of sweetheart and beau / Here by a hedge two others hesitate / Then join the shadowy thronging too and fro.

Do you believe that in those rooms upstair / The newer generation dreams again / Back to the lives of all these women and men / Setting them free to haunt the pavements here? / That youngsters sleeping see sails homeward fare, / Ships laden with treasure and salt romance; / The Quakers' broad brim; Puritans askance? / That such bold dreaming sets these spirits free / On this deserted street in moonlit beam / "Coming alive," though coming soberly / And looking on us as figures in = their = dream?

Hush, with what proud simplicity these figures move / And live again austerities of grace / Who used their lives so guardedly -- this glove / The homespun petticoat! this barbe of lace! / Boots and prunellas on the brick path pace; / Fair tinted skin, clear eye and honored name / Come through the panelled doors or garden place. / The scholars' reserve, the solid merchants' fame / The Friends, the Captains, blooded knight and dame, / Who to old English gentry backward trace.

So through the cobbled streets they silently press / On very gentle errands of their own / And make no plea, and no proud tale confess / Nor look aghast at their once simple town / Yet do they smile, permitting us to guess / That they prefer their own to our renown.

Was that the clock just struck. the street is clear / The moon rides high, there are no figures here. / Someone stopped dreaming in this street, my dear!