Summer Is a Child in a Glass Tower

Paul Eaton Reeve

Protected from the winds
Whose head nods
And eyelids close...
Close half-way
            But he must stay awake
For below move the watchers
Who sleep not yet

Sorrow is like summer.
Yet were he set
In the highest niche
Of the clearest wall
To which I lead,
Would sleep withdraw
When summer entered
Or sorrow slumber
Errorless as summer?

So this new clearness
That we but half remember
Opens at the edge
Ready to break -
              O tower,
Keep the children cool
For they must stay awake
And guide our ways through hours
Errorless with sorrows!