 | The poems and stories of Fitz-James O'Brien |  |
II.
Now when the shadow crept through the room,Filling the place with a cheerless gloom,
So that the weary work was stopped,
Her thin, mechanical hands she dropped,
And gazed at the wall so bare and bald,
Where the shadowy feet of the twilight crawled.
If at that moment she dreamed at all,
Or peopled with visions the cold, white wall,
She thought perhaps of that one bright day,
In the month of June or the month of May,
When, rich with the savings of many a week,
She felt fresh winds blow over her cheek,
As, with friends as poor and lowly as she,
She caught her first glimpse of the calm, blue sea,
Or roamed by copses or sunny lea,
And learned how bright the world could be.
But I doubt if the poor are rich in dreams,
Or build fine castles by golden streams;
For want, like frost-bite, kills the grain
That Fancy sows in the teeming brain,
And it is not every dreamy stare
That is filling with fairies the twilight air.
| The poems and stories of Fitz-James O'Brien | |