Complete poems of S. Weir Mitchell [electronic text]

CERVANTES

THERE are who gather with decisive power The mantle of contentment round their souls, And face with strange serenity the hour Of pain, or grief, or any storm that rolls Destruction o'er the tender joys of life.

There are whom some great quest of heart or brain Keeps even-poised, whatever fate the years May fetch to mock with lesser loss or gain, And find brief joy in smiles, small grief in tears, And tranquil take the hurts of human strife.

A few there be who, spendthrift heirs of mirth Immortal, mock the insolence of fate, And with a breath of jesting round the earth Ripple men's cheeks with smiles, and gay, elate, Sit ever in the sunshine of their mood.

Oh, royal master of all merry chords, Of every note in mirth's delightful scale, To thee was spared no pang that earth affords, Nor any woe of sorrow's endless tale,—Want, prison, wounds, all that has man subdued;

But, light of soul, as if all life were joy, Forever armed with humor's shining mail, True-hearted, gallant, free from scorn's alloy, When life was beggared of its best, and frail Grew hope, 't is said thou still wert lord of smiles.

This could I wish; and yet it well may be Thy heart smiled not, for wit, like fairy gold, Mayhap won naught for him who scattered glee, No help for him by whom the jest was told,— The world's sad fool, whose ever-ready wiles

Rang the glad bells of laughter down the years, And cheated pain with merry mysteries, And from a prison cell, the twins of tears, Sent forth his Don and Squire to win at ease Such joy of mirth as his could never be.

Ah, who can say! His latest day of pain Took Shakespeare's kindred soul. I trust they met Where smiles are frequent, and the saddest gain What earth denies, the privilege to forget "The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely."

But where he sleeps, the land which gave him birth, And gave no more to him, its greatest child, Knows not to-day. Some levelled heap of earth, Some nameless stone, lies o'er him who beguiled So many a heart from thinking on its pain.

Yet I can fancy that at morning there The birds sing gladder, and at evening still The peasant, resting from his day of care, Goes joyous thence with some mysterious thrill Of lightsome mirth, whose cause he seeks in vain.

October1888