Make Believe

I seek
The magic and the make believe Of the world
I lived to-night.

Gone...
Painted canvas,
Torn and old and dusty,
And a stage floor dreary in the half light
And a curtain flapping...
Trembling in the fingers of the air.

I seek
Those voices joyous down the acts
Of the world
I lived to-night.

Paper...
Thumb marked, frayed and dogeared,
Written in dead words of ink
And strewed in ranks disordered,
And heaped in silence.

I seek
And live again in memory
Lingering with time.

—E. F. H.