Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/83

“Oh daddy, we’ve been happy, you and I!”
I do not think she suffered any pain,
She breathed so quietly… but though I tried,
I could not warm her little hands again:
And so there in the icy dark she died.…
The dawn came groping in with fingers gray
And touched me, sitting silent as a stone;
I kissed those piteous lips, as cold as clay–
I did not cry, I did not even moan.
At last I rose, groped down the narrow stair;
An evil fog was oozing from the sky;
Half-crazed I stumbled on, I knew not where,
Like phantoms were the folks that passed me by.
How long I wandered thus I do not know,
But suddenly I halted, stood stock-still–
Beside a door that spilled a golden glow
I saw a name, my name, upon a bill.
“A Sale of Famous Pictures,” so it read,
“A Notable Collection, each a gem.
Distinguished Works of Art by painters dead.”
The folks were going in, I followed them.
I stood upon the outskirts of the crowd,
I only hoped that none might notice me.
Soon, soon I heard them call my name aloud:
“A ‘David Strong,’ his Fête in Brittany.”
(A brave big picture that, the best I’ve done,
It glowed and kindled half the hall away,
With all its memories of sea and sun,
Of pipe and bowl, of joyous work and play.
I saw the sardine nets blue as the sky,
I saw the nut-brown fisher-boats put out.)