| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | The Jester | | By Margaret Widdemer |
| | | I HAVE known great gold Sorrows: | |
| Majestic Griefs shall serve me watchfully | |
| Through the slow-pacing morrows: | |
| I have knelt hopeless where sea-echoing | |
| Dim endless voices cried of suffering | 5 |
| Vibrant and far in broken litany: | |
| Where white magnolia and tuberose hauntingly | |
| Pulsed their regretful sweets along the air— | |
| All things most tragical, most fair, | |
| Have still encompassed me … | 10 |
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| I dance where in the screaming market-place | |
| The dusty world that watches buys and sells, | |
| With painted merriment upon my face, | |
| Whirling my bells, | |
| Thrusting my sad soul to its mockery. | 15 |
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| I have known great gold Sorrows … | |
| Shall they not mock me, these pain-haunted ones, | |
| If it shall make them merry, and forget | |
| That grief shall rise and set | |
| With the unchanging, unforgetting suns | 20 |
| Of their relentless morrows? | | | | |
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