Page:The New Penelope.djvu/351

Rh "O, haste on!

The year or the pleasure is dead that is gone!"

Boasted the man of pomp and power;

"That which we hold is alone the good;

Give me new pleasures for every hour,

And grieve over past joys ye who would—

Joys that are fled are poor, I wis—

Give me forever the newest bliss!"

"Wish me joy,"

Girl-Beauty cried, with glances coy:

"In the New Year a woman I;

I'll then have jewels in my hair,

And such rare webs as Princes buy

Be none too choice for me to wear:

I'll queen it as a beauty should,

And not be won before I'm wooed!"

"Poor and proud—poor and proud!"

Sighed a student in the motley crowd—

"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:

"Lo, 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!"