Page:Poems PiattVol2.djvu/186

And shall you hear the ghastly tales
 From the slow, solemn lips of Time—
Of Wrong that wins, of Right that fails;
 Of trampled Want and gorgeous Crime;
Of Splendour's glare in lighted rooms
And Famine's moan in outer glooms

Of armies in their red eclipse
 That mingle on the smoking plain';
Of storms that dash our mighty ships
 With silks and spices through the main;
Of what it costs to climb or fall—
Of Death's great Shadow ending all?

But, baby Marian, do I string
 The dark with darker rhymes for you,
Forgetting that you came in Spring,
 The child of sun and bloom and dew,
And that I kissed, still fresh to-day,
The rosiest bud of last year's May?

Forgive me, pretty one: I know,
 Whatever sufferings onward lie,
Christ wore his crown of thorns below
 To gain his crown of light on high;
And when the lamp's frail flame is gone,
Look up: the stars will still shine on.