The Parks

There are green islands in the city sea, Where all day long, the endless, passionate waves Beat, yet destroy not; and their quiet saves How many a heart grown sick with memory! Not derelicts alone are foundered there, But children with the laughter of the May-- Bright, living flowers--in these glad gardens play, Knowing, yet knowing not, the town's despair! God made the ocean, where tumultuously The loud storms burst; and Babylon He made; Yet all the hills are His, dim valley and glade-- There are green islands in the city sea.