When Folks Find I Ain't Afeard To

Besides Writing, I Have Been Teaching Myself To 'develop' My Own Photographic Plates, And I Haven't A Stick Of Clothing Or An Exposed Finger That Isn't Stained. I Sit For Hours In A Dark-room Feeling As If I Were A Very Elderly Faust At Some Dreadful Incantation, And Come Out Of It, Blinding At The Light, Like A Bastille Prisoner. And Yet I Am Not Successful!

But Still When The Mists Of Doubt Prevail, And We Lie Becalmed By The Shores Of Age, We Hear From The Misty Troubled Shore The Voce Of Children Gone Before. Drawing The Soul To Its Anchorage.

Never A Lip Is Curved With Pain That Can't Be Kissed Into Smiles Again.

There Is Peace In The Swamp, Though The Quiet Is Death

The Delicate Thought, That Cannot Find Expression, For Ruder Speech Too Fair, That, Like Thy Petals, Trembles In Possession, And Scatters On The Air.