Grace Fallow Norton

WITHOUT, a city’s whirling dust,

A city’s alley-wall;

Without, a bleak, pale strip of sky.

Within, high festival.

Without, no greeting between friends,

From the hurrying crowd no smile.

Within, my heart’s slow pageant moves

In glorious solemn file.

There was no call for revel. Day,

Who summons us each morn,

Came forth in dreariest garb and blew

No gala herald-horn.

But slave of day I am not—nay,

Her mistress still, I wield

The crystal sceptre of my mood,

Bearing my dream’s white shield.

Exultant, rapture-flooded, mad

With mystic inner mirth,

My heart holds her strange carnival

Unseen of all the earth.