Classic Poem

Growing old, and looking back
Wistfully along his track,
I have heard him try to tell,
With a smile a little grim,
Why a world he loved so well
Had no larger fruit of him: —

'Twas one summer, when the time
Loiterid like drowsy rhyme,
Sauntering on his idle way
Somehow he had lost a day.
Whether 'twas the daisies meek,
Keeping Sabbath all the week,
Birds without one work-day even,

Or the little pagan bees,
Busy all-the sunny seven, —
Whether sleep at afternoon,
Or much rising with the moon,
Couching with the morning star,

Or enchantments like to these,
Had confused his calendar, —

" It is Saturday, " men said.
" Nay, 't is Friday, " obstinate
Clung the notion in his head.
Had the cloudy sisters three
In their weaving of his fate,
Dozed, and dropped a stitch astray?

" 'T was the losing of that day
Cost my fortune, " he would say.
" On that day I should have writ
Screeds of wisdom and of wit;
Should have sung the missing song,
Wonderful, and sweet, and strong;
Might have solved men's doubt and dream
With some waiting truth supreme.
If another thing there be
That a groping hand may miss
In a twilight world like this,
Those lost hours its grace and glee.
Surely would have brought to me. "