Page:The man against the sky; a book of poems.djvu/92

 "Forbear, forgive. Ten years are on my soul, And on my conscience. I've an incubus: My one distinction, and a parlous toll To glory; but hope lives on clamorous.

"'Twas hope, though heaven I grant you knows of what— The kind that blinks and rises when it falls, Whether it sees a reason why or not— That heard Broadway's hard-throated siren-calls;

"'Twas hope that brought me through December storms, To shores again where I'll not have to be A lonely man with only foreign worms To cheer him in his last obscurity.

"But what it was that hurried me down here To be among the ghosts, I leave to you.