University of Virginia Library


61

IN A GARRET

In deep twilight
The rain taps upon the skylight,
Beating, beating, like a deathless pulse of pain:
From the writing
His tired hands are aye inditing
He looks upward to the window dulled with rain,
And he muses
On the fame that still refuses
To attend him as he plies life's hungry trade,
On the rapture
Of the dreams he cannot capture,
On the hopes that cheat, the loves that still evade.

62

Is he dreaming?
No, 'tis but a slumber seeming,
But the shadow of a dream that vanisheth;
For the drifting
Misty veil of sleep uplifting
Hath but now disclosed the shadowy flood of death.