Where is that dream time of youth and wonder
when all the waking avenues of life seemed open before me
and bejeweled skies beckoned in that august dawn?
What fabulous kingdoms my lucid mind devised.
What riches beyond wealth compiled.
What beautiful women wondrous beyond desire.
And mine, all mine, for a touch of gold
that came so easily in that dawn.
Ah, Lucifer, how you did then despair,
yet laugh now at my ragged ware
that age has brought so low.
A dreamer dead in a garden fair,
I held council with the worm, the leaf, the stone.
The silent stone always won
without a word, but eloquent.
I threw a host of stars into the air,
and back they came as pale, brown leaves
murmuring with a broken throat
a thistled truth
that time had run
and I, my clever I, was done.
I held a thought in my hand
and squeezed it tightly,
yet it ran,
and when I was done,
night-rushing truth had won
and recognition gave and took,
and I was gone.
