_What can a wanderer bring_ _To little ones loved like you?_ _You have songs of your own to sing_ _That are far more steadfast and true,_ _Crumbs of pity for birds_ _That flit o’er your sun-swept lawn,_ _Songs that are dearer than all our words_ _With a love that is clear as the dawn._ _What should a dreamer devise,_ _In the depths of his wayward will,_ _To deepen the gleam of your eyes_ _Who can dance with the Sun-child still?_ _Yet you glanced on his lonely way,_ _You cheered him in dream and deed,_ _And his heart is o’erflowing, o’erflowing to-day_ _With a love that--you never will need._ _What can a pilgrim teach_ _To dwellers in fairy-land?_ _Truth that excels all speech_ _You murmur and understand!_ _All he can sing you he brings;_ _But--one thing more if he may_, _One thing more that the King of Kings_ _Will take from the child on the way._ _Yet how can a child of the night_ _Brighten the light of the sun?_ _How can he add a delight_ _To the dances that never are done?_ _Ah, what if he struggles to turn_ _Once more to the sweet old skies_ _With praise and praise, from the fetters that burn,_ _To the God that brightened your eyes?_ _Yes; he is weak, he will fail,_ _Yet, what if, in sorrows apart,_ _One thing, one should avail,_ _The cry of a grateful heart;_ _It has wings: they return through the night_ _To a sky where the light lives yet,_ _To the clouds that kneel on his mountain-height_ _And the path that his feet forget._ _What if he struggles and still_ _Fails and struggles again?_ _What if his broken will_ _Whispers the struggle is vain?_ _Once at least he has risen_ _Because he remembered your eyes;_ _Once they have brought to his earthly prison_ _The passion of Paradise._ _Kind little eyes that I love,_ _Eyes forgetful of mine,_ _In a dream I am bending above_ _Your sleep, and you open and shine;_ _And I know as my own grow blind_ _With a lonely prayer for your sake,_ _He will hear--even me--little eyes that were kind,_ _God bless you, asleep or awake._ * * * * * BY ALFRED NOYES Poems With an Introduction by HAMILTON MABIE _Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net_