Page:Poems Cook.djvu/395

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THE DREAMER.
"Ah, no! ah, no! it is not so;
His heart still glows,
When some old haunt he traces
Where the green blade grows.

"We wane away, till, bent and grey,
We creep where once we ran,
And Age lies down and ends his race
Where Boyhood's race began.

"'Tis there we sleep where daisies peep,
And sunset throws
The promise of a morrow
Where the green blade grows."




  And thus, where the mallow
  Was fringing the shallow;
The Poet One sung to the summer-lit stream,
  And then he grew dizzy
  With watching how busy
The swallows were, chasing the gnats in the beam.

  Then the minnow tribe swimming—
  The lotus-cup, brimming—
Had charms for his fancy, and lured him to stay;
  Till one, wiser and colder—
  A richer and bolder
Among the world's denizens, broke on his way.

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