Explore "In the Crowd" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
How happy they are, in all seeming, / How gay, or how smilingly proud, / How brightly their faces are beaming, / These people who make up the crowd! / How they bow, how they bend, how they flutter, / How they look at each other and smile, / How they glow, and what _bon mots_ they utter! / But a strange thought has found me the while!
It is odd, but I stand here and fancy / These people who now play a part, / All forced by some strange necromancy / To speak, and to act, from the heart. / What a hush would come over the laughter! / What a silence would fall on the mirth! / And then what a wail would sweep after, / As the night-wind sweeps over the earth!