| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 1298. Trilby |
| | | By Alice Brown |
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| O LIVING image of eternal youth! | |
| Wrought with such large simplicity of truth | |
| That, now the pattern’s made and on the shelf, | |
| Each vows he might have cut it for himself; | |
| Nor marvels that we sang of empty days, | 5 |
| Of rank-grown laurel and unprunëd bays, | |
| While yet, in all this lonely Crusoe land, | |
| The Trilby footprint had not touched the sand. | |
| Here ’s a new carelessness of Titan play. | |
| Here ’s Ariel’s witchery to lead the way | 10 |
| In such sweet artifice of dainty wit | |
| That men shall die with imitating it. | |
| Now every man’s old grief turns in its bed, | |
| And bleeds a drop or two, divinely red; | |
| Fair baby joys do rouse them, one by one, | 15 |
| Dancing a lightsome round, though love be done; | |
| And Memory takes off her frontlet dim | |
| To bind a bit of tinsel round the rim. | |
| Dreams come to life, and faint foreshadowings | |
| Flutter anear us on reluctant wings. | 20 |
| But not one pang, nay, though ’t were gall of bliss, | |
| And not one such awakening would we miss. | |
| O comrades, here ’s true stuff! ours to adore, | |
| And swear we ’ll carve our cherry-stones no more. | |
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