FAME
Once, in a dream, I saw a man,
With haggard face and tangled hair,
And eyes that nursed as wild a care
As gaunt Starvation ever can;
And in his hand he held a wand
Whose magic touch gave life and thought
Unto a form his fancy wrought
And robed with coloring so grand,
It seemed the reflex of some child
Of Heaven, fair and undefiled-
A face of purity and love-
To woo him into worlds above:
And as I gazed with dazzled eyes,
A gleaming smile lit up his lips
As his bright soul from its eclipse
Went flashing into Paradise.
Then tardy Fame came through the door
And found a picture-nothing more. |
LAUGHTER
Within the coziest corner of my dreams
He sits, high-throned above all gods that be
Portrayed in marble-cold mythology,
Since from his joyous eyes a twinkle gleams
So warm with life and light it ever seems
Spraying in mists of sunshine over me,
And mingled with such rippling ecstasy
As overleaps his lips in laughing streams.
Ho! Look on him, and say if he be old
Or youthful! Head in hand with gray old Time
He toddled when an infant; and, be-hold!
He hath not aged, but to the lusty prime
Of babyhood-his brow a trifle bold-
His hair a raveled nimbus of gray gold. |
TO A POET-CRITIC
Yes,-the bee stings-I confess it-
Sweet as honey-Heaven bless it!-
Yit he'd be a sweeter singer
Ef he didn't have no stinger. |
THE REST
He rests at last, as on the mother-breast
The playworn child at evening lies at rest,-
For he, a buoyant child, in veriest truth,
Has looked on life with eyes of changeless youth. |
