Portrait

Because life's passing show

Is little to his mind,

There is a man I know

Indrawn from human kind.

His dearest friends are books;

Yet oh how glad he talks

To birds and trees and brooks

On lonely walks.

He takes the same still way

By grove and hill and sea;

He lives that each new day

May like the last one be.

He hates all kinds of change;

His step is sure and slow:

Though life has little range

He loves it so.



He makes it his one aim

His pleasure to repeat;

To always do the same,

Since sameness is so sweet;

In simple things to find

The dearest to his mood.

His true life in his mind

Is oh so good!



Please leave him to his dream,

This old, unweary man,

Who shuns the busy stream

And has outlived his span.

Just leave him on his shelf

To watch the world go by . . .

Because he is--myself:

Yea, such be I.