Market Street on a Rainy Day

by William Nauns Ricks

Market Street on a Rainy Day

By WILLIAM NAUNS RICKS

An active fellow with nimble feet
Could run the length of Market street
On umbrellas, if he but cared;
Nor lose one step on the way he fared.

Aye—run the whole length and back again,
Over the heads of women and men;
All going up and none going down,
Filling, at morn, the empty town.

Indeed, it is a wonderful sight,
And I have imagined that at night
When they come down on their homeward way
That all of the city must cross the bay!

Suppose they did, and the town bereft
Of living creatures, only was left;
And not a light in a home was made,
And only the wind in the broad streets played?

And only gulls with their eerie cry
Would watch the buildings dark and high;
While ghosts of the past on noiseless feet
Again would parade on Market street?

Bret Harte would meet with Salome Jane,
And the two would run out Third again
And find their way to Rincon Hill
Where Tobe's light is shining still.

The Vigilantes, aroused from sleep,
Again from Fort Gunny-Bags would sweep.
All of the night marching up and down
Keeping their watch in the ghost-filled town,

Stanford and Crocker, Leidesdorff and Budd,
Would wait at the Grand with Walker and Flood;
The scholar, Bancroft, and young Starr King—
All the Pioneers to life would spring

To keep through the night, their well-loved town
And fill her streets till the moon went down,
And the white gulls called for the break of day,
And the town came back from across the bay.