Chapter VII

Would I could throw my stuttering self away
And shrine the soul wherein all wonders beat,
Would I were you, for one brief holiday
The whole shy universe before my feet.
O happiness, to know joy’s secret mine,
To hold adoring ministers in fee,
Narcissus-like to bless the Serpentine
And with the stars outdance Terpsichore.

For once a poet sang of happiness,
But now, like running flame, glad voices say--
“Joy is the sheer antithesis of wrong.”
Enough,--and I, no longer comradeless,
Behold exultant on the world’s highway
Your being, and the proof of Pippa’s song.