Only a sunbeam’s glinting gold On a splintered bit that we now behold Rich with crimson and purple sheen Autumn yellow and vernal green Until, transfigured, it glows arrayed In the rainbow aura the sunbeam made. Only an old man bent and gray Gazing into the far-away. Human wreckage forlorn and lone But his face with a sudden glory shone. Was it the sunbeam’s magic wand Or hidden splendors he glimpsed beyond? Only a bit of shattered glass, And a poor old man that we idly pass, But the shard like a diamond, glittered bright And the time worn face suffused with light, When the gates in the jasper walls swung wide And those broken fragments were glorified. WORKERS OF MAGIC Immured in the downy cocoon A marvelous artisan spins With threads like the beams of the moon So gossamer fine. Have the Djinns Who dream in the mulberry trees, O weaver beyond compare, Bewitched with the shimmer of orient seas Your fabric so lustrous and fair? Toiler imprisoned who weaves and weaves A silken glory from naught but leaves. To the mollusc, tormented, which holds The irritant sand in his shell, What radiant vision unfolds Invoked by the mermaiden’s spell? As he fashions that shape, and imbues It with colors he never has seen, With opalescent and rainbow hues, A pearl with the fairylike sheen Of the sea. O artist whom fate condemns To gild with beauty this queen of gems. In his desolate attic alone In the gloom of the midnight hour, The poet, despondent, unknown Is thrilled by that wizardly power That the silk worm and pearl oyster feel The urge to create! And his brain Like the anvil resounding to steel In a minstrelsy vibrant with pain, Sends sparkles blazing through singing lines As the verse with his burning thought combines. MY GOLDEN FLEECE