Poems of reflection

of
CHICAGO M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY 427-429 Dearborn Street
Copyright 1905. M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
Bohemia, o'er thy unatlassed borders How many cross, with half-reluctant feet, And unformed fears of dangers and disorders, To find delights, more wholesome and more sweet Than ever yet were known to the elite.
Herein can dwell no pretense and no seeming; No stilted pride thrives in this atmosphere, Which stimulates a tendency to dreaming. The shores of the ideal world, from here, Seem sometimes to be tangible and near.
We have no use for formal codes of fashion; No Etiquette of Courts we emulate; We know it needs sincerity and passion To carry out the plans of God, or fate; We do not strive to seem inanimate.
We call no time lost that we give to pleasure; Life's hurrying river speeds to Death's great sea; We cast out no vain plummet-line to measure Imagined depths of that unknown To Be, But grasp the Now, and fill it full of glee.
All creeds have room here, and we all together Devoutly worship at Art's sacred shrine; But he who dwells once in thy golden weather, Bohemia--sweet, lovely land of mine-- Can find no joy outside thy border-line.
Because of the fullness of what I had All that I have seems void and vain. If I had not been happy I were not sad; Though my salt is savorless, why complain?
From the ripe perfection of what was mine, All that is mine seems worse than naught; Yet I know as I sit in the dark and pine, No cup could be drained which had not been fraught.
From the throb and thrill of a day that was, The day that now is seems dull with gloom; Yet I bear its dullness and darkness because 'Tis but the reaction of glow and bloom.
From the royal feast which of old was spread I am starved on the diet which now is mine; Yet I could not turn hungry from water and bread, If I had not been sated on fruit and wine.