INTRODUCTION TO A COLLECTION OF POEMS BYDIFFERENT AUTHORS <br /> <br />AN usher standing at the door <br />I show my white rosette; <br />A smile of welcome, nothing more, <br />Will pay my trifling debt; <br />Why should I bid you idly wait <br />Like lovers at the swinging gate? <br /> <br />Can I forget the wedding guest? <br />The veteran of the sea? <br />In vain the listener smites his breast,-- <br />'There was a ship,' cries he! <br />Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale, <br />He needs must listen to the tale. <br /> <br />He sees the gilded throng within, <br />The sparkling goblets gleam, <br />The music and the merry din <br />Through every window stream, <br />But there he shivers in the cold <br />Till all the crazy dream is told. <br /> <br />Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye <br />That held his captive still <br />To hold my silent prisoners by <br />And let me have my will; <br />Nay, I were like the three-years' child, <br />To think you could be so beguiled! <br /> <br />My verse is but the curtain's fold <br />That hides the painted scene, <br />The mist by morning's ray unrolled <br />That veils the meadow's green, <br />The cloud that needs must drift away <br />To show the rose of opening day. <br /> <br />See, from the tinkling rill you hear <br />In hollowed palm I bring <br />These scanty drops, but ah, how near <br />The founts that heavenward spring! <br />Thus, open wide the gates are thrown <br />And founts and flowers are all your own!<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-threshold-2/
