University of Virginia Library


109

UNENCOURAGED ASPIRATION

Mine is the part of no companion hand
Of help, except my shadow's silent self:
A moonlight traveller in Fancy's land
Of leering gnome and hollow-laughing elf:
Whose forests deepen and whose moon goes down,
When night's blind shadow shall usurp my own;
And, 'midst the dust and wreck of some old town,
The City of Dreams, I grope and fall alone.