Edgar Fawcett (1847–1904)

IT chanced that in the dubious dusk of sleep

I seemed to attain that realm where mortals throw

All gross mortality earthward ere they go

Forth as frail spirits amid death’s hollow deep.

All folly and sin was here that life may reap,

All desperate fear and hope, all joy or woe;

And here all precious crowns the exalted know,

Lay gathered in superb tumultuous heap!

Stooping toward these, I marked with silent awe

Their ponderous gold, or gems that beamed like day,

Or lovelier laurel that grand brows had worn;

But hid below the beauty of each, I saw

Continually, in grim recurrent way,

The poignance of one small red-rusted thorn!