| SLOWLY I smoke and hug my knee, | |
| The while a witless masquerade | |
| Of things that only children see | |
| Floats in a mist of light and shade: | |
| They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, | 5 |
| And with a weak, remindful glow, | |
| The falling embers break and fade, | |
| As one by one the phantoms go. | |
| |
| Then, with a melancholy glee | |
| To think where once my fancy strayed, | 10 |
| I muse on what the years may be | |
| Whose coming tales are all unsaid, | |
| Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid | |
| Within their shadowed niches, grow | |
| By grim degrees to pick and spade, | 15 |
| As one by one the phantoms go. | |
| |
| But then, what though the mystic Three | |
| Around me ply their merry trade?— | |
| And Charon soon may carry me | |
| Across the gloomy Stygian glade?— | 20 |
| Be up, my soul; nor be afraid | |
| Of what some unborn year may show; | |
| But mind your human debts are paid, | |
| As one by one the phantoms go. | |
| |
ENVOY
Life is the game that must be played: | 25 |
| This truth at least, good friends, we know; | |
| So live and laugh, nor be dismayed | |
| As one by one the phantoms go. | |
