Frivolity
I dreamed I danced with nymphs and they With garlands 'round them filled the way.With laughter sweet they called the trees And drank with joy the perfumed breeze.Enthralled, I joined their frolic o'er the lea, Encircled by the gleeful forms I could not flee.And they aerial footed tripped the way; A sunlit nook they found beside a bay—Where lost amid the fragrance of the vagrant wild crab flower We, mirthful, wore a motif of each golden summer hour.Here some in dance, ecstatic, flung their fragile drapes about While others tuned their flutes with quaintly boisterous shout,And they sang to me a shadow song, so sweet they sang and low, That I swayed half-charmed to the mellow tune as they flitted to and fro.A golden mist enveloped us and we laughed as the shade grew deep, But it lulled my merrymakers to a dreamless, endless sleep.I dreamed, but startled by a raucous call. I woke and rose, alone, within my hall.—Laura Coy. Dayton, Ohio.
Youth
Lilting music, waxen floor, Lights that flicker, hearts that soarDancing feet and laughter gay. Youth immortal, nothing grey.
Tinkling glasses, summer moon, Youthtime, springtime, all in tune.Today is here, enjoy it then, Death comes soon, and who knows when?
Men grow old, yet youth lives on. Ages come and some have gone.Disillusion soon draws near, Harshly halting youth's career.
Wave 'pon wave breaks on the shore. Never ceasing—evermore.Thus it is that Life's gay youth Frolics till the dawn of truth.—Theresa Kane, Youngstown, Ohio.
