Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/109

Rh Now, there’s that youngster on my right Who thinks himself a poet, And so he toils from morn to night And vainly hopes to show it; And there’s that dauber on my left, Within his chamber shrinking– He looks like one of hope bereft; He lives on air, I’m thinking.

But me, I love the things that are, My heart is always merry; I laugh and tune my old guitar: ''Sing ho! and hey-down-derry. Oh, let them toil their lives away To gild a tawdry era, But I’ll be gay while yet I may: ''Sing tira-lira-lira.

I’m sure you know that picture well, A monk, all else unheeding, Within a bare and gloomy cell A musty volume reading; While through the window you can see In sunny glade entrancing, With cap and bells beneath a tree A jester dancing, dancing.

Which is the fool and which the sage? I cannot quite discover; But you may look in learning’s page And I’ll be laughter’s lover.