Littell's Living Age/Volume 141/Issue 1822/A Cynic

by Ethel Taine

And so your life has been a dreary story
     Of treachery against you, leal and true;
And little of our nature’s tender glory
               Is yet revealed to you.

You think that you are wise and I am dreaming
     The dream of youth — as beautiful as vain —
That friendship is another name for scheming,
               And love is — love of gain.

My friend, not long ago my dull existence
     Passed slowly by within a city drear,
I watched the endless roofs, the smoky distance,
               The sparrows, prating near,

At length a footstep mounted to my attic:
     One entered in and reached to me his hands,
And now I go with him — O joy ecstatic! —
               Across the meadow-lands.

The saucy robin trills his carol near us,
     The lark arises at our very feet,
While speckled thrush and blackbird often cheer us
               With mellow notes and sweet.

And he — my guide — has promised me that yonder
     Are built the nests of doves and nightingales,
In secret woods where we alone shall wander,
               In more sequestered vales.

But you — you look for doves in city alleys,
     For nightingales among the sparrow crew —
Then marvel that the music of our valleys
               Is still unheard by you.