Augustin S. Macdonald, comp. A Collection of Verse by California Poets. 1914.
By Lilian LaufertyThe Stream of Life
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Those friends whom we shall never know—comrades to whom our spirits cry.
A little child may shyly smile, a gray haired man may kindly glance;
But smiling still, they pass the while, and life bears on its puppet dance.
That lad of spirit blithe and gay may hold to friendship’s shrine the key.
But still the stream of life flows by—flows by to some unchartered sea;
A comrade spirit greets the eye, then sweeps away eternally.
We pass, but we may never meet, for still convention holds her sway.
Brothers and sisters all, they claim—perhaps, but ’tis a weary while.
Since man has dared, unknowing shame, to greet his fellows with a smile.