Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/A Prettier Book

by Sarah Piatt

A PRETTIER BOOK.

"He has a prettier book than this,"
 With many a sob between, he said;
Then left untouched the night's last kiss,
 And, sweet with sorrow, went to bed.

A prettier book his brother had—
 Yet wonder-pictures were in each.
The different colours made him sad:
 The equal value—could I teach?

Ah, who is wiser? . . . Here we sit,
 Around the world's great hearth, and look,
While Life's fire-shadows flash and flit,
 Each wistful in another's book.

I see, through fierce and feverish tears,
 Only a darkened hut in mine;
Yet in my brother's book appears
 A palace where the torches shine.

A peasant, seeking bitter bread
 From the unwilling earth to wring,
Is in my book; the wine is red,
 There in my brother's, for the king.

A wedding, where each wedding-guest
 Has wedding garments on, in his,—
In mine one face in awful rest,
 One coffin never shut, there is!

In his, on many a bridge of beams
 Between the faint moon and the grass,
Dressed daintily in dews and dreams,
 The fleet midsummer fairies pass;

In mine unearthly mountains rise,
 Unearthly waters foam and roll,
And—stared at by its deathless eyes—
 The master sells the fiend a soul!

. . . Put out the lights. We will not look
 At pictures any more. We weep,
"My brother has a prettier book,"
 And, after tears, we go to sleep.