Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-07-03
Penn Treaty Park

DoWPn Park by the wharf !" old Pen" Treaty
The trees are all canopy of green
The staunch poiceboat Stoldey, ancient
craft.
Is purring with gentle push of steam
That whispers in her valves. Along the pier
The water clucks and says. Two river cops
Sit smoking pipes outside their small caboose.
Above them looms a tragic rusty bow,
The Roald Amundsen. Norwegian tanker,
She that caught fire last winter at Point
Breeze
While loading oil. The river cops will tell
you
How all the schuylkill was hell of fame
And ten men lost their lives The good old
Siokley
Dredged the river afterward for bodies
A T SUNSET time in old Penn Treaty Park
"A The children sprawl and play: the
tawny light
Pours through the leafy chinks in sifted gold
And turns the middle-stream to level fire.
Then after that red sunset comes the dusk.
The little park is STEPPED in living shadow,
And Cupid pairs the benches by the pier
But there's girl who always sits alone
Coming at dark. she passes by the shaft
That marks the treaty ground of william
Penn.
Too dusk for reading. yet how we'll she knows
The words carved in the stone: Unbrohen
Faith.
MARY, of wildey street, had met All
lHl Larsen
Up at a picture show on East Girard.
Her father was hard one: he said fercely
No girl of his should run around with sailors,
No girl of his should play with bolsheviks.
All was Norwegian, and a decent fellow,
big blond youngster with quiet eye;
He loved the girl, but old man Morton swore
All Scandinavians were the same as Rus
slams
And every Russian was a bolshevik
MARY was stubborn; all her blood was
lfl wiIful;
At twilight by the old Penn Treaty stono,
She used to wait for Alf or he for her
And in some whim of Celtic flame and fancy
The carven words became her hearts own
motto,
And there they pledged their love- Unbrok.p
NH, GOLDEN evenings there along the
" river!
When all the tiny park was Eden land
oh eager hearts that burn and leap and
shlver
Oh hand that mates with hand!
And they would cross the Shackamaxon
ferry,
Or walk by Cramps to see the dry-docSed
ships,
Or in a darkened movie house make merry
with sudden lips on lips
A ND half their talk was tremulous with
"A yearning,
And half was of their future, shrewdly
| How All would leave the sea, and soon be
earning
Not less than thirty in a job on land:
| Between their kisses they would talk CT
saving,
Between their calculations, kiss again.
And she would say that he must be be-
While she described a house to rent at ten.
WITH Alf at sea, the girl would still go
w down
| To see the very bench where they had sat,
| The tidy stokIey moored beside the pier.
| The friendly vista of the Camden shore,
| The stone where they had locked their hearts
| In one.
| On time went by The armistice came on,
| And Mary radiant, for her lad no more
| would run the gantlet of the submarines,
| And he had heard a chance to get job
! AS watchman up at Cramps. Just one more
| voyage
He planned; thep he would quit and they'd
| begin.
So. late one night, in the familiar park
They said good-by. 1t was their last good-by
| AS Mary said his ship Was due TO sail
I,Day after next, and he would have no chance
To come again. She turned beside the stons
K To fix IN view that place pf happy tryst,
TIE quiet Ieafess park Win powdsfed frost
lho lnmps Of the roliceboat vea ana green