Poem by Lesbia Harford

* * *

He has picked grapes in the sun. Oh it seems
Like a fairy tale,
Like a tale of dreams.
"He in his slender youth, with vines, with sun,
Under a blazing sky"—
The tale might run.
There's beauty for eye and mind, for sight and thought,
Here on the surface.
Plunge. This beauty's nought.
Vision succeeds to dream. Deep in his heart
Fierier beauty lives
Than this surface art.
He has no song to sing of fragrant soil
Who in his heart revolts
At unlovely toil.
He has known the real, the truth of it. It seems
Misery eats the heart
Out of fairest dreams.
He in his slender youth, at strife, in vain
Offers his life to set
The world right again.

1. Closing Time: Public Library
2. He had served eighty masters. They'd have said
3. Do you remember still the little song
4. All through the day at my machine
5. If you have loved a brave story

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