The poem
This morning on my pensive walk I saw a fisher on a rock, Who watched his ruby float careen In waters bluely crystalline, While silver fishes nosed his bait, Yet hesitated ere they ate.
Nearby I saw a mother mid Who knitted by her naked child, And watched him as he romped with glee, In golden sand, in singing sea, Her eyes so blissfully love-lit She gazed and gazed and ceased to knit.
And then I watched a painter chap, Grey-haired, a grandfather, mayhap, Who daubed with delicate caress As if in love with loveliness, And looked at me with vague surmise, The joy of beauty in his eyes.
Yet in my Morning Rag I read Of paniked peoples, dark with dread, Of flame and famine near and far, Of revolution, pest and war; The fall of this, the rise of that, The writhing proletariat. . . .
I saw the fisher from his hook Take off a shiny perch to cook; The mother garbed her laughing boy, And sang a silver lilt of joy; The artist, packing up his paint, Went serenely as a saint.
The sky was gentleness and love, The sea soft-crooning as a dove; Peace reigned so brilliantly profound In every sight, in every sound. . . . Alas, what mockery for me! Can peace be mine till Man be free?