William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922.
The Worlds
I
Piping with Iris by a dancing brook;
And all his world was rife with Pleasures gay,
And languid Follies smiled from every nook.
His rainbow rising from his radiant task,
To throw its magic prism beams
O’er Fancy’s changeful masque and counter-masque.
Whereon his foster-brothers lighter tread,
His skyward pinions ever closer furled
Before the grim necessity of bread!
Worthy his death-wage from the mint of time;
I saw a sailor, unto whom the sea
Was hearth and hope and love and wedding-chime.
I saw a saint among his fellow men—
Brave soldiery before my eyes defiled
And solemn-hearted scholars—Sudden then
In their ethereal remoteness swung,
Than these near human orbits wherein we
Live out our lives and speak our chosen tongue!
Least soul unlit within the night—
And over all, the selfsame sun
Give each creation light!”