As a little child at play
Blows upon a pipe of clay
Bubbles, evanescent, bright,
With their iridescent light,
So I fling upon the wind
Verses of the bubble kind.

And my friend with eyes of blue
Looks my dainty verses through,
Pauses from his books awhile,
With an intellectual smile;
For my fancy seems as naught
To this man of deeper thought.

Still I plead as my excuse:
"Even bubbles have their use.
They are perfect while they live,
And their short career may give,
As they shimmer, and are flown,
Some suggestion for our own.

"Let their beauty, pure and glad,
Make another soul less sad,
And, as upward they are whirled,
Let them show their little world,
Floating clouds and perfect sky,
Warmly mirrored, ere they die."

HERBERT MULLER HOPKINS.
_Columbia Literary Monthly._