William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.

I, Who Laughed My Youth Away

I, WHO laughed my youth away

And blew bubbles to the sky,

Thin as air and frail as fire,

Opals, pearls of such desire

As a saint could but admire;

Now as azure as a sigh,

Then with passion all aglow—

Golden, crimson, purple, gray

Moods and moments of a day—

Have been gay,

Yea,

As they,

Sailing high,

Sinking low;

Even so

Pierrot,

Walking Paris in a trance,

With my weary feet in France

And my heart in Bergamo,

Loved—and lost my laughing way.

I, of course, have never had

Any great amount of gold

Other than my bubbles hold.

Love? I have no loving plan

As a guide to beast or man,

Being neither good nor bad,

Just a sort of sorry lad.

Ainslee’s Magazine