H. Thompson Rich

TIRED of the world and weary of its ways,

Lonely and old and broken now, he nods

Among the idols he mistook for gods,

A ruin in the wreck of yesterdays.

And since his mad past must be hung in haze,

Since he must fog his senses lest he think

How youth and hope and all were lost in drink,

Since he must never know how high he pays,

He sits and sips and gives himself to dreams,

Fond dreams wherein he sees himself again

The lad who thought that life was all it seems.

And now there is a glory in his eyes;

Forgotten are the bitterness and pain

Of the rue years—this is his paradise.