Clinton Scollard

IN a dim nook beneath the street

Where Pine and noisy Nassau meet,

This little book of song I found

In scarred morocco quaintly bound.

Each musty and bemildewed leaf

Bespeaks long years of grime and grief;

Long years,—for on the title page

A dim date tells the volume’s age.

Ah, who was he, the bard that sung

In that dead century’s stately tongue

In those envanished days of yore?—

An empty name—I know no more!

Yet as I read will fancy form

A face whose glow is fresh and warm,

A frank, clear eye wherein I view

A nature open, genial, true.

Mayhap he dreamed of fame, but fate

Has barred to him that temple’s gate;

He loved,—was loved,—for one divines

An answered passion in his lines;

He died, ah, yes, he died, but when

He ceased to walk the ways of men,

Or where his clay with mother clay

Commingles sweetly, who can say!

In pity will I give his book

A not too lonely study nook,

Where kindly gleams of light may play

Across it of a wintry day;

And I will take it down sometimes

To con the prim and polished rhymes.—

Will thus, when the grey years have fled,

Some book of mine be housed and read?