The Jester

I have known great gold Sorrows: Majestic Griefs shall serve me watchfully Through the slow-pacing morrows: I have knelt hopeless where sea-echoing Dim endless voices cried of suffering Vibrant and far in broken litany: Where white magnolia and tuberose hauntingly Pulsed their regretful sweets along the air-— All things most tragical, most fair, Have still encompassed me . . . I dance where in the screaming market-place The dusty world that watches buys and sells, With painted merriment upon my face, Whirling my bells, Thrusting my sad soul to its mockery. I have known great gold Sorrows . . . Shall they not mock me, these pain-haunted ones, If it shall make them merry, and forget That grief shall rise and set With the unchanging, unforgetting suns Of their relentless morrows?