Then Hostess Life turned silently, her searching gaze on me,
And with no word, she reached her hand, and offered up the key.

p. 4It opened first the door of Hope, and long I lingered there,
Until I spied the room of Dreams, just higher by a stair.

And then a door whereon the one word “Happiness” was writ;
But when I tried the little key I could not make it fit.

It turned the lock of Pleasure’s room, where first all seemed so bright—
But after I had stayed awhile it somehow lost its light.

And wandering down a lonely hall, I came upon a room
Marked “Duty,” and I entered it—to lose myself in gloom.

Along the shadowy halls I groped my weary way about,
And found that from dull Duty’s room, a door of To. . . Read More