 | In Classic Shades and other poems |  |
105
A. T. STEWART.
[_]
[The preceding lines are already in one of my books, but I put them here for the purpose of antithesis. I have forgotten when this last-named man died. I doubt if anybody cares to know. I doubt if anybody even knows where he is buried.
Of course I shall be abused for doing what I do. But I have my duties. And I shall stand stoutly up against the face of the world in its foolish deification of gold when I think it best.]
The gold that with the sunlight lies
In bursting heaps at dawn,
The silver spilling from the skies
At night to walk upon,
The diamonds gleaming with the dew
He never saw, he never knew.
In bursting heaps at dawn,
The silver spilling from the skies
At night to walk upon,
The diamonds gleaming with the dew
He never saw, he never knew.
He got some gold, dug from the mud,
Some silver, crushed from stones.
The gold was red with dead men's blood,
The silver black with groans.
And when he died he moaned aloud
“There'll be no pocket in my shroud!”
Some silver, crushed from stones.
The gold was red with dead men's blood,
The silver black with groans.
And when he died he moaned aloud
“There'll be no pocket in my shroud!”
| In Classic Shades and other poems | |