| |
| YEAR after year I sit for them, | |
| The boys and girls who come and go, | |
| Although my beauty’s diadem | |
| Has lain for many seasons low. | |
| |
| When first I came my hair was bright,— | 5 |
| How hard, they said, to paint its gold, | |
| How difficult to catch the light | |
| Which fell upon it, fold on fold,— | |
| |
| How hard to give my happy youth | |
| In all its pride of white and red; | 10 |
| None would believe, in very truth, | |
| A maiden was so fair, they said. | |
| |
| How could they know they gave to me | |
| The daily hope which made me fair, | |
| Sweet promises of things to be, | 15 |
| The happy things I was to share. | |
| |
| The flowers painted round my face, | |
| The magic seas and skies above, | |
| And many a fair enchanted place | |
| Full of the summer time and love. | 20 |
| |
| They set me in a fairy-land, | |
| So much more real than they knew, | |
| And I was slow to understand | |
| The pictures could not all come true. | |
| |
| But one by one, they died somehow, | 25 |
| The waking dreams which kept me glad, | |
| And as I sat, they told me now, | |
| None would believe a maid so sad. | |
| |
| They paint me still, but now I sit | |
| Just for my neck and shoulder lines, | 30 |
| And for the little lingering bit | |
| Of color in my hair that shines. | |
| |
| And as a figure worn and strange | |
| Into their groups I sometimes stray, | |
| To break the light, to mark their range | 35 |
| Of sun and shade, of grave and gay. | |
| |
| And evermore they come and go, | |
| With life and hope so sweet and high,— | |
| In all the world how should they know | |
| There is no one so tired as I. | 40 |
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