Page:The torrent and The night before.djvu/38

 THE CLERKS not think that I should find them there When I came back again; but there they stood, As in the days they dreamed of when young blood Was in their cheeks and women called them fair. Be sure, they met me with an ancient air,— And yes, there was a shop-worn brotherhood About them; but the men were just as good, And just as human as they ever were.

And you that ache so much to be sublime, And you that feed yourselves with your descent, What comes of all your visions and your fears?— Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time, Tiering the same dull webs of discontent, Clipping the same sad aluage of the years.

A BALLADE BY THE FIRE I smoke and hug my knee, The while a witless masquerade Of things that only children see Floats in a mist of light and shade: They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, And with a weak, remindful glow, The falling embers break and fade, As one by one the phantoms go.

Then, with a melancholy glee To think where once my fancy strayed, I muse on what the years may be Whose coming tales are all unsaid, Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid Within their shadowed niches, grow By grim degrees to pick and spade, As one by one the phantoms go.