<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h3><SPAN name="page307"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>A COMMONPLACE DAY</h3>
<p class="poetry"> <span class="smcap">The</span> day is turning ghost,<br/>
And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively,<br/>
To join the anonymous host<br/>
Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe,<br/>
To one of like degree.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page308"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>I part the fire-gnawed logs,<br/>
Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends<br/>
Upon the shining dogs;<br/>
Further and further from the nooks the twilight’s stride
extends,<br/>
And beamless black impends.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Nothing of tiniest worth<br/>
Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or
praise,<br/>
Since the pale corpse-like birth<br/>
Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays—<br/>
Dullest of dull-hued Days!</p>
<p class="poetry"> Wanly upon the panes<br/>
The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts;
and yet<br/>
Here, while Day’s presence wanes,<br/>
And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set,<br/>
He wakens my regret.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page309"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Regret—though nothing dear<br/>
That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime,<br/>
Or bloomed elsewhere than here,<br/>
To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime,<br/>
Or mark him out in Time . . .</p>
<p class="poetry"> —Yet, maybe, in some
soul,<br/>
In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose,<br/>
Or some intent upstole<br/>
Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows<br/>
The world’s amendment flows;</p>
<p class="poetry"> But which, benumbed at
birth<br/>
By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be<br/>
Embodied on the earth;<br/>
And undervoicings of this loss to man’s futurity<br/>
May wake regret in me.</p>
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