From the Hand of a Child
One day a child ran after me in the street,
To give me a half-blown rose, a fire-white rose,
Its stem all warm yet from the tight-shut hand.
The little gift seemed somehow more to me
Than all men strive for in the turbid towns,
Than all they hoard up through a long wild life.
And as I breathed the heart-breath of the flower,
The Youth of Earth broke on me like a dawn,
And I was with the wide-eyed wondering things,
Back in the far forgotten buried time.
A lost world came back softly with the rose:
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