Light was the lilt of your frolicsome feet, Winsome your grace as a banner unfurled; Home gave you happiness sweet and complete; Why were you charmed by the siren-voiced world? Fortune was bountiful though she was blind; Youth was like morning with dew drops impearled; Love was beneficent; What do you find Now, in a portionless, pitiless world? Envy has eyed you with lowering sneer; Pity's proud lip in contempt has been curled; Prudence has called you in tremulous fear— Fear of a dissolute, desolate world. Autumn's gray mists have come down on your track; Summer's dead memories round it are swirled; Who is beside you to pilot you back— Back from the wildering waste of the world? Oh for the lilt of the frolicsome feet! Oh for the grace like a banner unfurled! Oh for the happiness, sweet and complete! Ah for the charm and the cheat of the world! |