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| I SAW these dreamers of dreams go by, | |
| I trod in their footsteps a space; | |
| Each marched with his eyes on the sky, | |
| Each passed with a light on his face. | |
| |
| They came from the hopeless and sad, | 5 |
| They faced the future and gold; | |
| Some the tooth of want’s wolf had made mad, | |
| And some at the forge had grown old. | |
| |
| Behind them these serfs of the tool | |
| The rags of their service had flung; | 10 |
| No longer of fortune the fool, | |
| This word from each bearded lip rung: | |
| |
| “Once more I ’m a man, I am free! | |
| No man is my master, I say; | |
| To-morrow I fail, it may be,— | 15 |
| No matter, I ’m freeman to-day.” | |
| |
| They go to a toil that is sure, | |
| To despair and hunger and cold; | |
| Their sickness no warning can cure, | |
| They are mad with a longing for gold. | 20 |
| |
| The light will fade from each eye, | |
| The smile from each face; | |
| They will curse the impassable sky, | |
| And the earth when the snow torrents race. | |
| |
| Some will sink by the way and be laid | 25 |
| In the frost of the desolate earth; | |
| And some will return to a maid, | |
| Empty of hand as at birth. | |
| |
| But this out of all will remain, | |
| They have lived and have tossed; | 30 |
| So much in the game will be gain, | |
| Though the gold of the dice has been lost. | |
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