Once, in a lucid and ironic season,

I looked behind the mask the living wear,

Hardly expecting either fiend or angel

Under the tarnished brightness of that stare,

But saw a meagre spirit, hungry, thirsty,

Refuse the rushing fountain of the heart;

Account his age on fingers; always careful

To utter important words too far apart.

Each from another hides defeat or sorrow,

Approves the blended, loves the second-best,

And assures himself that truth is in his mirror,

That earth has used him like a welcome guest.

Reader in books of none but happy endings,

He dreads the merciless who may destroy

With a burly truth the huddled men and hopeful,

Or rouse the sleeping to more vivid joy.

To him the terrible lightning flash is cruel

He lifts a timid hand to shade his eyes,

To give him peace, to roof a mind with twilight

Whose only wisdom is to fear the wise.