<h2><SPAN name="chap08"></SPAN>THE WORLDS</h2>
<p class="poem">
I saw an idler on a summer day<br/>
Piping with Iris by a dancing brook;<br/>
And all his world was rife with Pleasures gay,<br/>
And languid Follies smiled from every nook.<br/>
<br/>
I saw an artist in a world of dreams,<br/>
His rainbow rising from his radiant task,<br/>
To throw its magic prism beams<br/>
O’er Fancy’s changeful masque and counter-masque.<br/>
<br/>
I saw Toil—stooping underneath a world<br/>
Whereon his foster-brothers lighter tread,<br/>
His skyward pinions ever closer furled<br/>
Before the grim necessity of bread!<br/>
<br/>
I saw a sinner working hard to be<br/>
Worthy his death-wage from the mint of time;<br/>
I saw a sailor, unto whom the sea<br/>
Was hearth and hope and love and wedding-chime.<br/>
<br/>
I saw a mother living in her child—<br/>
I saw a saint among his fellow men—<br/>
Brave soldiery before my eyes defiled<br/>
And solemn-hearted scholars—Sudden then<br/>
<br/>
I cried: “The stars are no less neighborly<br/>
In their ethereal remoteness swung,<br/>
Than these near human orbits wherein we<br/>
Live out our lives and speak our chosen tongue!<br/>
<br/>
“Love seek through all—less there be one<br/>
Least soul unlit within the night—<br/>
And over all, the selfsame sun<br/>
Give each creation light!”<br/></p>
<p class="left">
MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON BIANCHI</p>
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