BALLADE OF THE RICH HEART
What thief is he can rob this treasury,
Which hath not gold but dreams within its gates?
What power can enter in to take from me
My treasure, while upon the threshold waits
“Courage,” my watch-dog, keeping back the fates
Which follow close until I do depart
In safety from their little loves and hates?
Singing of all I carry in my heart.
Guarded of dreams against all evil chance,
With young Adventure arm in arm I go
To laugh at Luck and silly Circumstance.
And, counting naught that comes to me my foe,
I change, if ’tis my whim, the winter snow
To blowing blossom: and by that same art
I fashion as I will Life’s weal and woe:
Singing of all I carry in my heart.
Let me go lame and lousy like a tramp
But feel the wind and know the moonlit sky!
What matter if the falling dew be damp—
Still is it dew! And well contented I
Among my dreams (in seeming poverty)
Far from the cities and the noisy mart,—
With Life and Death—my dearest friends—to lie,
Singing of all I carry in my heart.
Envoi.
Prince of this world, high monarch of all those
Who deem Reality life’s better part,
Herewith I tweak thy crooked royal nose—
Singing of all I carry in my heart.