Stay we here as the crowd goes by,
Twining along the street—
Listless steps and a half-breathed sigh;
Laughter and twinkling feet:
Care-worn faces where Time has set
Pathos in every line:
Budding Hope with a dead Regret—
Rue and roses and mignonette
Bunched in a queer design!
One is clad in a purple gown;
One in a skirt of grey;
Brushing past where the lights beat down,
Following each her way:
One is marked by a barefoot son;
One by a florid beau,
Tangled still was the skein she spun—
She who slept when the day was done ...
Say—was it ordered so?
See who comes with the drunkard’s gait
Out from the taproom door!
He was born to a man’s estate,
White to his inmost core:
Few were turned from the Master’s hand
Fit to compare with Jim ...
Now by the world despised and banned,
Clear as day shows the damning brand
Destiny placed on him!
Fools may prate of a will that’s free,
Else of their strength and brain:
Know they not that the jarrah tree
Only splits with the grain?
Think they not that a man denies,
Or takes his faith on trust—
Not from the words of the foolish wise,
Not from the vision of sightless eyes—
But just because he _must_!
So pass they, while the music plays,
Tramping to God knows where:
Some goal His in the outer haze
Waiting the pilgrims there;
But if, as preachers aver, it be
Part of some changeless plan
Typed in the shop of Eternity,
Never a sentence, my friends, did we
Write for the play of “_Man_”!