IX

As a poor man hungering stands with insatiate eyes and hands

Void of bread

Right in sight of men that feast while his famine with no least

Crumb is fed,

Here across the garden-wall can I hear strange children call,

Watch them play,

From the windowed seat above, whence the goodlier child I love

Is away.

Here the sights we saw together moved his fancy like a feather

To and fro,

Now to wonder, and thereafter to the sunny storm of laughter

Loud and low —

Sights engraven on storied pages where man's tale of seven swift ages

All was told —

Seen of eyes yet bright from heaven — for the lips that laughed were seven

Sweet years old.