Page:Carroll - Phantasmagoria and other poems (1869).djvu/196

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ONLY A WOMAN'S HAIR.

[After the death of Dean Swift, there was found among his papers a small packet containing a single lock of hair and inscribed with the above words.]

'Only a woman's hair'! Fling it aside!
A bubble on Life's mighty stream:
Heed it not, man, but watch the broadening tide
Bright with the western beam.

Nay! In those words there rings from other years
The echo of a long low cry,
Where a proud spirit wrestles with his tears
In loneliest agony.

And as I touch that lock, strange visions rise
Before me in a shadowy throng—
Of woman's hair, the joy of lovers' eyes,
The theme of poet's song.