Page:The Man with the Hoe, Markham, 1900.djvu/137



From the Hand of a Child

One day a child ran after me in the street,

To give me a half-blown rose, a fire-white rose,

Its stem all warm yet from the tight-shut hand.

The little gift seemed somehow more to me

Than all men strive for in the turbid towns,

Than all they hoard up through a long wild life.

And as I breathed the heart-breath of the flower,

The Youth of Earth broke on me like a dawn,

And I was with the wide-eyed wondering things,

Back in the far forgotten buried time.

A lost world came back softly with the rose:

I saw a glad host follow with lusty cries 109