Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

On First Looking into the Manuscript of Endymion

Charles Hanson Towne

I DARED not dream that this dream had come true:

That I was bending over that yellow page

Lit with his words—our boy, our poet, our sage—

And that I touched the parchment, old yet new,

Whereon his fingers once had been. I grew

Strangely afraid, as if some heritage

Of wonder from a distant, holy age

Had suddenly fallen on me, like soft dew.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever….” There

I read his lovely line, what time I dipped

Into that hushed and haunted manuscript

That love and time have made even lovelier.

Oh, I could only dream; yea, dream and weep …

Was it a vision?—Did I wake or sleep?