“WE CANNOT ESTIMATE THE WORTH OF THINGS”
I
We cannot estimate the worth of things
That once seemed small. The value of a rose
With red-lipped beauty and with fragrant wings,
One spirit, the spirit that watched it fading, knows.
II
We cannot tell what rapture we may miss
Who lightly lose what once was nobly won.
God's heart was given in some dead woman's kiss.
One tiny shipwrecked star may wreck the sun.
III
The child can live without the poet's heart
That loved the little face through which heaven smiled.
Ah me! my soul is lost, thus rent apart:
The poet cannot live without the child.
July 31, 1901.
