The Magpie

The Magpie

By Robert S. Warshow, '33

I walked one day
In the Garden of Wasted Things,
And there I found
The bitter ghosts of all that had been spent unwisely,
Or lost through brutal circumstance.

I found the childhood
That some labourer's child had never known;
I found the youth that some young man had squandered;
There I found some poet's genius
That had gone unrecognised.

I saw the ghosts of idle words,
And small talk,
That men had used to waste away the hours.

I saw the hopes that had been smothered,
And all the dreams
That never had come true,
And Laughter that had died for lack of bread.

I met with all the lives that had been misdirected,
And spoke with dreary shades
Of loves that might have been,
And songs that never had been sung.

I met with all these ghosts,
And many more;
And each of them
Sat silently in the shadows,
Brooding over quirks of mad Creation,
And puppets' dreams.