A Sonnet for the City

THIS day into the fields my steps are led.
I cannot heal me there! Row after row
Thousands of daisies radiantly blow;
They have not brought from Heaven my daily bread,
But they are like a prayer too often said.
I have forgot their meaning, and I go
From the cold rubric of their gold and snow,
And the calm ritual, all uncomforted.
I want the faces! faces! remote and pale,
That surge along the city streets; the flood
Of reckless ones, haggard and spent and frail,
Excited, hungry! In this other mood
’T is not the words of the faith for which I ail,
But to plunge in the fountain of its living blood.