Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857–1940)

THE BLIND man at his window-bars

Stands in the morning dewy dim;

The lily-footed dawn, the stars

That wait for it, are naught to him.

And naught to his unseeing eyes

The brownness of a sunny plain,

Where worn and drowsy August lies,

And wakens but to sleep again.

And naught to him a greening slope,

That yearns up to the heights above,

And naught the leaves of May, that ope

As softly as the eyes of love.

And naught to him the branching aisles,

Athrong with woodland worshippers,

And naught the fields where summer smiles

Among her sunburned labourers.

The way a trailing streamlet goes,

The barefoot grasses on its brim,

The dew a flower cup o’erflows

With silent joy, are hid from him.

To him no breath of Nature calls;

Upon his desk his work is laid;

He looks up at the dingy walls,

And listens to the voice of Trade.