open our eyes to get it!
And the trifle which makes it black as night,
If we close our lids and let it!
Behold, as the world goes whirling by,
It is gloomy, or glad, as it fits your eye.

As it fits your eye, and I mean by that
You find what you look for mostly;
You can feed your happiness full and fat,
You can make your miseries ghostly,
Or you can forget every joy you own
By coveting something beyond your zone.

In the storms of life we can fret the eye
Where the guttering mud is drifted,
Or we can look to the world-wide sky
Where the Artist's scenes are shifted.
Puddles are oceans in miniatures,
Or merely puddles; the choice is yours.

We can strip our niggardly souls so bare
That we haggle a penny between us;
Or we can be rich in a common share
Of the Pleiades and Venus.
You can lift your soul to its outermost look,
Or can keep it packed in a pocketbook.

We may follow a phantom the arid miles
To a mountain of cankered treasure,
Or we can find, in a baby's smiles,
The pulse of a living pleasure.
We may drink of the sea until we burst,
While the trickling spring would have quenched our thirst.

THE SAVING CLAUSE.

Kerr wrote a book, and a good book, too;
At least I[A] managed to read it through
Without finding very much room for blame,
And a good many other folks did the same.
But when any one asked me[A]: "Have you read?"
Or: "How do you like?" I[A] only said:
"Very good, very good! and I'm glad enough;
For his other writings are horrible stuff."

Banks wrote a play, and it had a run.
(That's a good deal more than ever I've[A] done.)
The interest held with hardly a lag
From the overture to the final tag.
But when any one asked me[A]: "Have you seen?"
Or: "What do you think?" I[A] looked serene
And remarked: "Oh, a pretty good thing of its kind,
But I guess Mr. Shakespeare needn't mind!"

Phelps made a machine; 't was smooth as grease.
(I[A] couldn't invent its smallest piece
In a thousand years.) It was tried and tried,
Until everybody was satisfied.
But when any one asked me[A]: "Will it pay?"--
"Is it really good?"--I[A] could only say:
"It's a marvelous thing! Why, it almost thinks!
And Phelps is a wonder--too bad he drinks!"

[Footnote A: (Errata: On scann