The Pageant Of Life

Like a pageant they pass-groups of toilers
With their sweat, their aching joints,
Their weary backs, their dim eyes
Downward bended with their glance;
Meek wayfarers with faltering steps,
Upon paths that have no definiteness;
Children, like winged songs flitting the fields;
Old age, bended, with no youthful wine
To rekindle their embering flesh;
Hope-lit youth bent upon discovery,
Urged by the lash of youth,
Striding strongly upon the rough sod.
Like ghosts they pass me by in that hour,
Which is the last of day and the first of eve-
Phantoms of yesterday,
Leaving no hint of their past,
Merely reflections upon the mirror of Time.