Poems (Kennedy)/Jack o' Lantern
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JACK O'LANTERNS
OUT of the lush of the lowlands
Where the dark lies cool and dank
It comes—
And dips and veers, and re-appears
Like a vagrant ghost or a spirit lost—
The jack o' lantern's flame.
Where the dark lies cool and dank
It comes—
And dips and veers, and re-appears
Like a vagrant ghost or a spirit lost—
The jack o' lantern's flame.
And we?—
We follow—{follow—{follow
Far out through the jagged night
The beck of its drifting light,
And come at last in the faint first dawn
To a melting mist with the glamour gone
And the spell of its magic lost.
We follow—{follow—{follow
Far out through the jagged night
The beck of its drifting light,
And come at last in the faint first dawn
To a melting mist with the glamour gone
And the spell of its magic lost.
Out of the glooms and the shadows
That curtain the cycles of time
They come—
And slip away, the dreams astray
That tempt our souls to gleaming goals
On star-crowned heights.
That curtain the cycles of time
They come—
And slip away, the dreams astray
That tempt our souls to gleaming goals
On star-crowned heights.
And we?—
We follow—follow—follow
In eager, endless quest
The lure of a mad unrest;
And come at last where the life lines part
With empty hands and an empty heart,
And the mock of a memory!
We follow—follow—follow
In eager, endless quest
The lure of a mad unrest;
And come at last where the life lines part
With empty hands and an empty heart,
And the mock of a memory!