  A PHOTOGRAPH IN A SHOP WINDOWTHROUGH a Gethsemane of city streets, Whose ministering angels seemed from hell, And ever stabbed me with their venomed darts, Till soul and body writhed in misery, I strayed—a hunted mortal—sport of Fate. Then, when 'twas worst, behold thy pictured face! Calm, peaceful, resolute; thy comrades true Around thee, "helmed and tall;" ah! then I knew How angels strengthen us in time of need, And from thy face drew solace for my smart. I WATCH the printer's clever hand Pick up the type from here and there— Make it in ordered row to stand, And gather it with practised care. Maybe 'twill make the poet's page, The leaf of some romantic book, The sheet that chronicles the age, The tome on which the sage shall look. But ah! not yet; full well he knows No printer lives from error free; And in those neat and serried rows Are letters that ought not to be. He takes his proof-sheet with a sigh, Deleting here, and adding there, Till not the keenest reader's eye But must confess the whole is fair. And shall the pages of our lives— Letter by letter daily set— Be subject, when the end arrives, To no revising process yet? Sometimes our eyes are blurred with tears, Sometimes our hands with passion shake, Sometimes a tempting Devil leers At all the errors that we make. Forbid, O God! that work so vain Shall stand in an eternal scroll— With faults of sin, and joy, and pain— As long as future ages roll! |
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