GROWING old, and looking back
Wistfully along his track,
I have heard him try to tell,
With a smile a little grim,
Why a world he loved so well
Had no larger fruit of him:—

'Twas one summer, when the time
Loiterëd like drowsy rhyme,
Sauntering on his idle way
Somehow he had lost a day.
Whether 'twas the daisies meek,
Keeping Sabbath all the week,
Birds without one work-day even,
Or the little pagan bees,
Busy all-the sunny seven,—
Whether sleep at afternoon,
Or much rising with the moon,
Couching with the morning star,
Or enchantments like to these,
Had confused his calendar,—

'It is Saturday,' men said.
'Nay, 't is Friday,' obstinate
Clung the notion in his head.
Had the cloudy sisters three
In their weaving of his fate,
Dozed, and dropped a stitch astray?

''T was the losing of that day
Cost my fortune,' he would say.
'On that day I should have writ
Screeds of wisdom and of wit;
Should have sung the missing song,
Wonderful, and sweet, and strong;
Might have solved men's doubt and dream
With some waiting truth supreme.
If another thing there be
That a groping hand may miss
In a twilight world like this,
Those lost hours its grace and glee.
Surely would have brought to me.'