FOOLS OF DREAM by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON

YOU will find them in lone hidings,
You may know them by their face,
For they seem to bring good tidings
From some bright, unrumored place;
Tidings like to be unnoted
Of the world, yet very sure
To bring joy, the golden-throated,
When the better things endure.

Fools, and worse than fools, we call them,
And they smile nor make reply;
The eternal quests enthrall them,
Though we hound them till they die;
Even midst the mob they wander
With a dream-light in their eyes,
And their look, it seems to ponder
An evangel from the skies.

Something childlike in their laughter
Leaves a freshness like the spring;
At their beck, those follow after
Who delight in wayfaring
Where the road leads ever higher
And the wind blows back the hair,
And the word of a Messiah
Haunts and hovers in the air.

Nay, the world can never daunt them,
For their gladness is within;
Though no human voice may vaunt them,
Though their deeds be reckoned sin:
In the fullness of the Ages
They will come into their own,
They will light Time's dimmest pages,
Sitting splendid on a throne!

Let us toast them, since they cherish
The unbelievable, quick Gleam:
To the fools who do not perish,
To the deathless fools of Dream!

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