Bohemia, o'er thy unatlassed borders How many cross, with half-reluctant feet, And unformed fears of dangers and disorders. To find delights, more wholesome and more sweet Than ever yet were known to the "_elite_." Herein can dwell no pretence and no seeming; No stilted pride thrives in this atmosphere, Which stimulates a tendency to dreaming. The shores of the ideal world, from here, Seem sometimes to be tangible and near. We have no use for formal codes of fashion; No "Etiquette of Courts" we emulate; We know it needs sincerity and passion To carry out the plans of God, or fate; We do not strive to seem inanimate. We call no time lost that we give to pleasure; Life's hurrying river speeds to Death's great sea; We cast out no vain plummet-line to measure Imagined depths of that unknown To Be, But grasp the _Now_, and fill it full of glee. All creeds have room here, and we all together Devoutly worship at Art's sacred shrine; But he who dwells once in thy golden weather, Bohemia--sweet, lovely land of mine-- Can find no joy outside thy border-line. "That is just the fear which disturbs my heart, as I am about to cross the border-line and go back to the common-place world," sighed Percy, when the applause which succeeded the recitation died away. "I doubt my ability to enjoy anything, after this delightful experience." "Well, now," said Homer Orton, "in response to the _encore_ I _ought_ to have received, I will give you a few verses appropriate to _that_ situation, my dear fellow. If you commit them to memory, they may serve to help you in those dark hours of mental and spiritual pain which come to every man--the morning after the club supper. They are called-- PENALTY. Because of the fullness of what I had, All that I have seems poor and vain. If I had not been happy, I were not sad-- Tho' my salt is savorless, why complain? From the ripe perfection of what was mine, All that is mine seems worse than naught; Yet I know, as I sit in the dark, and pine, No cup could be drained which had not been fraught. From the throb and thrill of a day that was, The day that now is seems dull with gloom; Yet I bear the dullness and darkness, because 'Tis but the reaction of glow and bloom. From the royal feast that of old was spread, I am starved on the diet that now is mine; Yet, I could not turn hungry from water and bread, If I had not been sated on fruit and wine."