C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Charles Henry Phelps (1853–1933)

THEY tell me ’tis foolish to prate of love

In the sweet and olden way:

They say I should sing of loftier things,

For Love has had his day.

But when Dorothy comes

I cannot choose,—

I must follow her

Though the world I lose;

My very soul

Pours forth in song

When dainty Dorothy

Trips along.

It is all very well to say to me

That Browning’s noble strain

Rises and swells with the tide of thought

Or throbs with the pulse of pain;

But if Dorothy once

Had crossed his path,

Her radiance such

A witchery hath

That across the world

Would not seem long

To follow Dorothy

With his song.