In the rustic town, or the city
We seek our place in vain;
And our hearts are starved for pity,
And our souls are sick with pain.
Yes, the people are buying, selling,
And the world is one great mart.
And woe for the thoughts that are dwelling
Up in the poet’s heart.
We know what the waves are saying
As they roll up from the sea,
And the weird old wind is playing
Our own sad melody.
We send forth a song to wander
Like a spirit of ill or good;
And here it is heard, and yonder,
But is nowhere understood.
For the world it lives for fashion,
For glory, and gain, and strife;
And what can it know of the passion
And pain of a poet’s life?
THE CAPTIVE
My lady is robed for the ball to-night,
All in a shimmer and silken sheen.
She glides down the stairs like a thing of light,
The ballroom’s beautiful queen.
Priceless gems on her bosom glow—
Half hid by laces a queen might wear.
Robed is she, as befits, you know,
The wife of a millionaire.
Gliding along at her liege lord’s side,
Out-shining all in that company,
Into the mind of the old man’s bride
There creeps a curious simile.
She thinks how once in the Long Ago,
A beautiful captive, all aflame
With jewels that weighed her down like woe,
Close in the wake of her captor came.