The Secret Town by Ogden Nash

"There is a town within a town,

Where my true love walks alone,

And green, oh, meadow green, is her gown,

And daffodil gold her shoon.

Unto that silent secret place,

No street, no alley, leads.

A town without a market place,

No huckster crowd it feeds.

The wagon wheels without the wall,

They are not heard within.

The angry bells that clash and call,

They may not enter in.

And thunderheads their thunder lose;

Such is stillness there,

That in the grassy avenues

The deer feeds, and the hare.

And there the hot sun softlier sifts,

And the harsh wind softlier blows,

And the frost melts, and the fog lifts,  

And earlier springs the rose.

Within that town a lady walks

In dear serenity,

And lilies on their slender stalks

Less stately are than she.

Less delicate the violets are,

Less light of foot of deer,

Less lovely is the evening star,

Than she who walketh here.

I built that greedy outer town,

And she the town within.

When my own creature howls me down,

She bids me enter in.

Oh meadow, meadow green is her gown,

And daffodil gold her shoon.

God keep the town within the town,

Where my true love walks alone."

Thinking of you, Andra and Erika.