Far have I sought, and flung my wealth of years
Like a young traveler, gay at careless inns—
See how the wine-stain whitens 'neath the tears
My burden wins!
And wilt thou know me, Love, with bended back,
Or wilt thou scorn me, in so drear a guise?
I have a wealth of sorrows in my pack,
One lonely prize—
Thy dream—and dross of sin.... O, dim the fields—
I may not find thee in so dark a land—
Yet I await what hope the turning yields
And beg with empty hand.
Kenneth Rand [1891-
EVENSONG
Beauty calls and gives no warning,
Shadows rise and wander on the day.
In the twilight, in the quiet evening,
We shall rise and smile and go away.
Over the flaming leaves
Freezes the sky.
It is the season grieves,
Not you, not I.
All our spring-times, all our summers,
We have kept the longing warm within.
Now we leave the after-comers
To attain the dreams we did not win.
Oh, we have wakened, Sweet, and had our birth,
And that's the end of earth;
And we have toiled and smiled and kept the light,
And that's the end of night.
Ridgely Torrence [1875-