POEMS
BY
SIDNEY ROYSE LYSAGHT
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1911
CONTENTS
THREE AGES OF MAN
The child is part of all that he beholds;
Youth with his dreams of love the world enfolds;
Man takes life in his hands, and mars or moulds.
Freed of its load, washed of its gathered stain,
In the child’s spirit life is born again.
Of all he sees and loves he is a part:
Faith lights his footsteps; filtered through his heart
The everlasting fountain-springs o’er-run
In rills of joy, and life and he are one.
Youth is life’s lover, eager to embrace
And reach the soul that lights so fair a face;
But, as the lover on the maid confers
From his own dreams a beauty more than hers,
So youth illumines with the radiant hues
Of heart’s desire the vision he pursues.
Man is life’s guardian;—unknown issues wait
On his intent: his sight directs blind fate.
’Tis his before the Belly-god to kneel,
Or sow the harvests of life’s commonweal,—
To quit his post, or guard through pain and death
The hope with which creation travaileth.
The child gives love, and makes the world his own;
Youth looks for harvests which he has not sown;
Man shares God’s burden on the road unknown.