Page:Poems by Frances Fuller Victor.djvu/102

 Sighed a student in the motley crowd:

"'Poor and proud, poor and proud,'"

"I heard her whisper that aside.

O fatal fairness aping heaven

When earthly most! I'll not deride.

God knows that were all good gifts given

To me as lavishly as rain,

I'd bring them to her feet again."

"Here are the fools we use for tools,

Bending their passion ere it cools

To any need," the Cynic said;

"So, I will give him gold, and he

Shall sell me brain as it were bread.

His very soul I'll hold in fee

For baubles that shall buy the hand

Of the coldest woman in the land."

Spirit-sore

The Old Year cared to see no more;

While as he turned he heard a moan;

Frosty and keen was the wintry night,

Prone on the city's paving-stone

Unwatched, unwept, a piteous sight

Starved and dying a poor wretch lay,

Through the blast he heard him dying say:

94