Your back was turned, you did not see
The shadow that he made.
He bent his head and looked at me;
It made my soul afraid.
The words I had begun to speak
Fell broken in the air.
You saw the pallor of my cheek,
And turned--but none was there.
He came as sudden as a thought,
And so departed too.
What made him leave his task unwrought?
It was the sight of you.
Though Death but seldom turns aside
From those he means to take,
He would not yet our hearts divide,
For love and pity's sake.
MAKE-BELIEVES
When I was young and well and glad,
I used to play at being sad;
Now youth and health are fled away,
At being glad I sometimes play.
A COINCIDENCE
Every critic in the town
Runs the minor poet down;
Every critic--don't you know it?
Is himself a minor poet.
ART'S DISCIPLINE
Long since I came into the school of Art,
A child in works, but not a child in heart.
Slowly I learn, by her instruction mild,
To be in works a man, in heart a child.
THE TRUE LIBERAL
The truest Liberal is he
Who sees the man in each degree,
Who merit in a churl can prize,
And baseness in an earl despise,
Yet censures baseness in a churl,
And dares find merit in an earl.
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