The Shoppes--down here--are white like paper birch
With cobbled crossings marking out the stores
And from the roadway humming like a church
With empty pews, and glowing at the doors.

At winter, golden lights which prick the dark in scores
Like some forgotten vale of Bambi found
Belie the urban sounds and motor roars
That siege the fronts and sidewalks of the round.

To me--should not some Spartan life astound?
Why twigs and twilight, hearth and hew so please?
When limits of the stars seem by the ground,
Consolidation lays the world in lease.  . 

But once inside, their tinsel kills the sight--
And sparkling of a less reversing kind takes flight!