Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/A Prettier Book
A PRETTIER BOOK.
"He has a prettier book than this," With many a sob between, he said;Then left untouched the night's last kiss, And, sweet with sorrow, went to bed.
A prettier book his brother had— Yet wonder-pictures were in each.The different colours made him sad: The equal value—could I teach?
Ah, who is wiser? . . . Here we sit, Around the world's great hearth, and look,While Life's fire-shadows flash and flit, Each wistful in another's book.
I see, through fierce and feverish tears, Only a darkened hut in mine;Yet in my brother's book appears A palace where the torches shine.
A peasant, seeking bitter bread From the unwilling earth to wring,Is in my book; the wine is red, There in my brother's, for the king.
A wedding, where each wedding-guest Has wedding garments on, in his,—In mine one face in awful rest, One coffin never shut, there is!
In his, on many a bridge of beams Between the faint moon and the grass,Dressed daintily in dews and dreams, The fleet midsummer fairies pass;
In mine unearthly mountains rise, Unearthly waters foam and roll,And—stared at by its deathless eyes— The master sells the fiend a soul!
. . . Put out the lights. We will not look At pictures any more. We weep,"My brother has a prettier book," And, after tears, we go to sleep.