—From “Songs from the Golden Gate.”

—Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and used by kind permission of author and publisher.

WHY?

By Madge Morris Wagner

Why is it we grasp at the shadow

That flits from us swift as thought,

While the real that maketh the shadow

Stands in our way unsought?

And why do we wonder, and wonder,

What’s beyond the hill-tops of thought?