The Windows

              The Windows

The windows, shining in an afternoon

Long lost, a light of long lost boyhood day,

Let in enough of childhood sun to spoon

Some beams of beauty for the lad.  The stray

Shafts through abandoned panes were just enough.

His eye fell on the toy soldiers there

In rows of red, and gold, and blue, the stuff

Of little boy dreams.  A mythic lair

Of animals, like teddies, rocking steed

With painted mane and purple saddle, plumed

Beasts, ivory goats—Beauty in a stampede,

Left locked up, out of reach.  The boy was doomed

Forever to a vision held and chaste

In reveries with longing memories traced.