C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Salt of the Earth
By Algernon Charles Swinburne (18371909)
I
But only men and women grown;
No baby-locks in tendrils curled,
No baby-blossoms blown;
And nearer all delights in reach,
And verse and music uttered rarer
Tones of more godlike speech;
Found, as it cannot now find, words;
Though desert sands were sweet as flowers,
And flowers could sing like birds:
They felt a child’s foot leap and run,—
This were a drearier star than ever
Yet looked upon the sun.