Chapter II

Oh, leave the lyre upon his humble stone,
The rest erase; if Keats were come again,
The quickest he to blot this cry of pain,
The first to take a sorrowing world’s atone.
’Tis not the high magistral way to moan
When a mean present leaps and sweeps amain
Athwart the prophets’ vision; not one groan
Escapes their souls, and lingers not one strain.
They answer to their ideals; their good
Outshines all flare and glare of futile marts.
They stand beside their altars while the flood
Ephemeral rolls on and roars and parts.
It shall not chill a poet’s golden blood;
It cannot drown the masters’ mighty hearts.

TIGER

_To the barking of the monkeys, to the shrieking of the birds;
To the bellow of the bison and stampeding of the herds;
At fiery edge of sunset, from the jungle to the wold,
Death stalks in shining ebony and orange-tawny gold._

He slouched with loose, low shamble from the glade,
And as he flung his feet along the track,
Machine-like glided each great shoulder-blade
Under his pelt. He stopped and scratched his back
Against a stump; then sat a little while,
Curling his ring-straked tail around his paws,
Yawning with a gigantic, sleepy smile
That showed the ruddy gulf between his jaws.
The fangs were white and sound, for he was young--
A male of four full years, in all his pride,
Perfect, lean, knit of rubber and steel, and strung
With sinews taut; content and satisfied,
Since the twice five great, crooked daggers set
Deep in his awful pads had never failed
To win his belly all it wanted yet--
A tiger who unfailingly prevailed.
And no beast kinglier than himself he knew,
For he had tracked and hunted, caught and slain
All that his fellow-tigers caught and slew,
Though horns might miss by inches eye and brain.
A forthright beast and huge, his yellow eyes
Glowered steadfast into life; he felt no ill
Of heart or conscience, or the pang that flies
Through higher mammals, plagued with choice of will
And all the handicaps of consciousness.
He knew not right nor wrong; no evil thought
Sullied his wits; his task no more or less
Than faithfully to do all he was taught.
While the dread smeech and terror of his breath
Down a hot wind at dusk, to fearful flocks
Threatened the unknown, unnamed horror, death,
And sent them hurtling to the plains and rocks,
To him they stood for life and all it meant
Of being--food and sport and work and play,
Love and prosperity and full content,
With strength to solve the problems of each day.

His brain began to brood and meditate,
Thinking on action, while the red sun set,
For he had come from far with a new mate
To a new valley. She was sleeping yet
In the bamboos behind him, great with young,
Where prickly cactus hemmed the lair and palm
Over their couch its sombre frondage hung.
There would she bide a little safe from harm,
While he must go afield and do his part
And fetch a tender antelope, or goat,
To win her praise and glad her weary heart
With a hot supper for a hungry throat.
He pondered now within his broad, flat skull,
Then stretched and with his lifted nose and ear
Winnowed the silence of the evening lull
To learn if grass-eaters were stirring near;
When down the wind, though not a lizard ran
And no hoof thudded on the dusty bent,
He smelt a something fragrant and began
To twitch his nostrils at the ravishment.
A subtle scent and new! His whiskers pricked;
His body huddled flat and seemed to shrink;
His great nape bristled up; his jowl he licked;
Then, like a banded snake, began to sink
And trickle through the spear grass. By a stone
He sudden lifted, then he set and stilled,
While footfall of some game, that went alone,
Came innocently pattering, to be killed.
Couchant, like a set trap, with head out-thrust,
The hunter crouched, quivering his black tail-tip,
Until it drew a fan upon the dust
Behind him. Then his jaws began to drip,
As though a gargoyle, where red lichens grew,
Was dribbling. Now the thing that he had heard
Approached--a little creature, strange and new--
That went not on four feet, nor yet a bird.
He strung himself to spring, while at a trot,
The Indian runner on his lonely road
Jogged forward, dreaming of a supper-pot.
Bound was he for a village, where abode
One, passing fair, the runner’s master meant
To wed ere long--a radiant maid to whom,
By fleet-foot messenger, the suitor sent
Two poems of his own writing.

Then the gloom,
Where a first firefly winked her golden spark
Upon the deepening purple, broke and tore--
The twilight stillness ended on a stark,
Harsh, grating, deep-mouthed, solitary roar,
Hollow as death; while from his secret place
The tiger loosed the lightning of his thighs,
Leapt on the man and with unwitting grace
Struck him to instant nothing. Levin flies
Less merciful. A huddled, crumpled clout,
Brown, oozing red, dissolved beneath the mass
Of living teeth and brawn. The brains were out;
Head, a cracked egg-shell leaking on the grass.
Thus in a heap to mother earth they came,
Both quick and dead; and then the great cat sought
His grim, familiar, ghastly after-game;
But he had hit too hard and spoiled his sport.
He drew and coaxed with hooked and playful paws,
Hoping to find the life had not quite gone,
And moved by those infernal, feline laws,
That made him frolic when his work was done.
For oft his perishing food would feebly strive,
Driven by life’s undying hope, and led
To struggle still from death while yet alive;
But his first man the tiger found was dead.

And when the conqueror tasted, his rough tongue
Thrilled a new, joyous lust into his brain,
For the soft, furless stuff his palate stung
With mad, delicious twang--oft, oft again
Would he smell up the wind for such another.
He hoped the dainty creatures went in packs,
And that his prey had kids and many a brother
To steal at cool of evening on his tracks.
He gaped and gripped the mangled clod of earth
Under its ribs, heaved up a muzzle white,
Sounded a grunt, that seemed akin to mirth,
And bore his dripping coolie out of sight.
So to his mate, and as the cross-cut saws
Bite upon teak with backward, forward hiss,
He purred, then dropped the banquet from his jaws
And woke the tigress with a bloody kiss.
Eyes shut, heads sideway, cheek by cheek they ate,
To sound of squash and gulch and cracking bone,
Deciding swiftly, as they fed, the fate
Of the two love songs. They were deftly sewn
Within the compass of a gold-cloth bag,
Tied with a silken cord, stamped with a seal.
The tiger crunched and gulped the sodden rag
With all the other mysteries of his meal.
For, while a poem himself, he was no poet,
Being devoid of vision, wit, or ruth;
But many who live poetry, never know it
And would be much surprised to learn the truth.

Sated at last, they sauntered forth to find
A water-hole; but as they washed their jowls
And cleaned their whiskers, sudden on the wind
Broke din of brass and drums and human howls.
For there had gone another runner by,
And smelt the blood and seen the reeking trail,
And flown, and shouted “Bagh!” and raised the cry
That tiger were again upon the vale.
From jungle edge they peered and torches red
Turned each bewildered eye into a gem
Of glinting emerald--then sudden dread
Awoke at flash of fire, unknown to them.
Fear touched their primitive hearts; they ran and roared,
Awakening old echoes down the glade;
Shoulder to shoulder from the gleam abhorred
They padded, wondering to be afraid.
Until no blink of the accursed thing
Tortured the night, they galloped, sweating hot,
Then, all unknowing what the day would bring,
They stopped and sulked and snarled; and so forgot.
Anon they sleep, nor guess the dawn shall see,
Of hunters white and beaters brown, some score
Surround them in a circle steadfastly,
To set the cosmos on its feet once more.
They sleep, nor dream the pangs of “dum-dum” lead
That wait on sunrise, when they two shall feel
All they have measured to uncounted dead,
And suffer sentences without appeal.
Upon their mighty necks will dance the feet
Of the unpelted things that lay them low;
For of the fruit forbidden did they eat
And both must go where the bad tigers go.

_To the trumpeting of elephants and blaze of morning light,
To the nosing rifle barrels, to the stinking of cordite,
With a crash and smash and struggle and a yell their tale is told;
Death blots the shining ebony and orange-tawny gold._

THE PUDDLE

I cursed the puddle when I found
Unseeing I had walked therein,
Forgetting the uneven ground,
Because my eyes
Were on the skies,
To glean their glory and to win
The sunset’s trembling ecstasies.

And then I marked the puddle’s face,
When still and quiet grown again,
Was but concerned, as I, to trace
The wonder spread
Above its head,
And mark and mirror and contain
The gold and purple, rose and red.

VISION

There have been seers of olden time who said,
When dreaming men are rapt into the state
Where only shadow people congregate,
That never may they see the faces of their dead.

But I have seen the faces I have lost,
And none so clear and none so shadowless
In all that moonshine dance and frolic stress
Of dream futility, as some I loved the most.

Not as I knew him last my brother stood,
A man upon whose kindly face a stain
Lay in the letters of life’s care and pain;
But as a little lad, when all the world was good.

High in the darkness of a pine, elate
About our long-forgotten forest play,
I hung, where he had found a squirrel’s dray:
For I was twelve again, and he was only eight.

I saw his boyhood’s look, as bright and fair
As ever shone from huddle of a dream;
Reality’s own self shall never seem
More real than his young laugh and flaxen, Saxon hair.

And waking old, I blessed the memory
Of my child-brother’s unforgotten face,
Thanking, as it had been a deed of grace,
The tenderness of dreams that brought him back to me.

IN GALLIPOLI

There is a fold of lion-coloured earth,
With stony feet in the Ægean blue,
Whereon of old dwelt loneliness and dearth
Sun-scorched and desolate; and when there flew
The winds of winter in those dreary aisles
Of crag and cliff, a whirling snow-wreath bound
The foreheads of the mountains, and their miles
Of frowning precipice and scarp were wound
With stilly white, that peered through brooding mist profound.

But now the myrtle and the rosemary,
The mastic and the rue, the scented thyme
With fragrant fingers gladdening the grey,
Shall kindle on a desert grown sublime.
Henceforth that haggard land doth guard and hold
The treasure of a sovereign nation’s womb--
Her fame, her worth, her pride, her purest gold.
Oh, call ye not the sleeping place a tomb
That lifts to heaven’s light such everlasting bloom.

They stretch, now high, now low, the little scars
Upon the rugged pelt of herb and stone;
Above them sparkle bells and buds and stars
Young Spring hath from her emerald kirtle thrown.
Asphodel, crocus and anemone
With silver, azure, crimson once again
Ray all that earth, and from the murmuring sea
Come winds to flash the leaves on shore and plain
Where evermore our dead--our radiant dead shall reign.

Imperishable as the mountain height
That marks their place afar, their numbers shine,
Who with the first-fruits of a joyful might
To human liberty another shrine
Here sanctified; nor vainly have they sped
That made this desert dearer far than home,
And left one sanctuary more to tread
For England, whose memorial pathways roam
Beside her hero sons, beneath the field and foam.

THEN AND NOW

When I was young and leapt into the Spring--
An eager, quick-eyed, all-inquiring thing--
I hunted wood and valley, sea and shore
Yet knew not how to feel the wonders that I saw.

Now am I old and creep into the Spring--
A grey-haired, dim-eyed, still inquiring thing.
By ancient ways, a shadow, still I steal,
Yet know not how to see the wonders that I feel.

Come Youth again, while to another Spring
My memories the old adventure bring.
Wonder and wander yet once more with me.
I’ll teach you how to feel, and you my eyes shall be.

VIGIL

There is a glen beneath a lonely hill,
Where the deep tangles of the red brake fern
Huddle to death and beautifully burn,
While maiden birches flame along the sunset still.

Like morning lamps they fade; their gold expires
Among the silvery shadows of each stem.
Delicious light gently departs from them
Where winter bloweth out the autumn’s final fires.

Furzes, all agate-budded for the spring,
Hedge round about the coomb and, higher still,
A mist of naked branches hides the hill,
And pines bring warmth and scent and dusky sheltering.

How oft have I within this vernal wood
Watched the green mantle and the sweet sap mount.
Trees are mine own familiars; them I count
Among the changeless hearts that make my chiefest good.

How often, when the first of blossoms come,
Do I behold the opening of their eyes.
Mine is the worship; theirs the shy surprise
That I so well should know each punctual haunt and home.

Here have I watched full many a night from far
Like lover shadowy, ere set of sun,
Dark-eyed steal hither, and when day was done,
Mist meet the gentle moon; dew, the eternal star.

Once more the stroke of every madcap wind
Doth shake the bough and dash the ripe fruit down,
Or shower red leaves and berries for a crown,
October’s stormy hair to glorify and bind.

Again I see; again I sigh to see
The fading, flaming year sink to her end,
Another summer--sure another friend--
Decline and die and pass with music solemnly.

Farewell, ye happy, rainbow-winged hours;
The autumn’s dew and bitter, silver breath
Shall freeze your rosy feet, and strike to death
Your spirits where ye drowse amid the withered flowers.

Farewell ye domes and canopies of June
Raining upon the earth in red and gold;
Hiding the sodden bosom of the wold;
Flying like little ghosts, beneath the hunter’s moon.

Beside the passing year my watch I keep
And mark the sad-eyed gloamings steal away,
And feel the low and lemon light of day
Fade, like an aching care, upon the fringe of sleep.

DARTMOOR NIGHT

Now twilight spreads her cool and amber plume,
Descending on the solitudes until
All detail dies: the valley and the hill
Together darkling roll and merge into the gloom.

Faints the far emerald west and day is done;
White Venus, throbbing on the dusky gold,
Swings out her lamp above the weald and wold,
While little, earth-born flames make answer one by one.

A child upon her mighty mother’s breast,
Earth cuddles in the bosom of old Night,
Who, gathering coomb and woodland, heath and height,
Opens her dewy wings to hide their dreamless rest.

The mists are trailing grey by watersmeet,
Night-hidden in the forest far below,
And where their pearly-paven vapours flow,
The Huntress upward steals to find her starry seat.

Her waxing splendours over moss and mire
Flood fen and barrow, reeve and pool and burn,
The lone, high tors, the tracks that wind and turn
Where the quartz crystal shines with dim and tremulous fire.

She marks the stone-man’s lodges empty lie;
The broken folds, the tinner’s delving place;
She lights the cairn, the cross, the faltering trace
Of bygone dead who homed in this immensity.

From cottage window fades the ruby gem
And glimmer moonbeams only; while the moon,
Mounting to heaven upon her silver shoon,
A sovereign sceptre holds and wears the diadem.

O Queen of sleep and silence, thou shalt reign,
With lustral glory poured to soothe and bless
The least small life in all the wilderness,
Till morning stars awake and sing the dawn again.

THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

The seraphim, beneath their burning blades,
Moved in a wave of light; while overhead
Gleamed the pale moon, a ghost behind the tongues
Of all those flaming swords; and rearward crept
The brutes of Paradise--the tiger, ounce,
The leopard and the minions of the night.
Stealthy they stalked, with growls that showed the fang,
While in a broken thread of fiery beads,
Golden and green and ruby, through the dark,
Fierce glowed their eyes behind that angel host.
And now they roared for mingled grief and fear,
Because, before the moving seraphim,
Flung out for ever from the dingles deep
And all those pleasant places of sweet shade
Beside the rivers and beneath the trees,
Two, whom the great cats loved, were driven forth.
Bewildered and disgraced, the primal pair,
Now glimmering with moonlight on their heads
And streaks of flickered gold that splashed along
Their thighs and backs, reflected from the swords,
Together went. Hand clasped in hand they moved
Before the marching angels, till at last
The confines of the only home they knew
Were reached and the soft herbage made an end.
Over their heads the tracery of trees
Ceased, and the naked moon among her stars
Hung in the nightly sky and threw a light,
Cold as grey ashes, on the earth beneath.
Starkly the desert struck upon their toes
With harsh and flinty welcome; Eve’s right foot,
Set down upon a thistle, cried to her
Of a new grief; she moaned in pain, and he,
Adam, with tenderness bent down to it
And licked the blood that sparkled on her skin
In drops the moonlight robbed of sanguine stain
And turned to bright, black pearls. Thus driven forth
Were they for their transgression, and the guard
Took open order on the fringe of Eden,
Against whose frontier dark the sentinels
Stood silently, lit by their burning swords,
To hold the garden precincts; while between
Each seraph and his neighbour still peeped out
The creatures of the earth and howled farewell
To those white things that had befriended them,
And taught their cubs to play in Paradise.
They crouched and lashed their tails and shook the night
That Eve and Adam to the wilderness
Should pass away without one lynx or pard
To purr beside them. All would have rushed forth
But that the ring of fire struck on their hearts
And sent them snarling back. For there had been
A precious bond, a close and curious link
Twixt Adam and his partner and the brutes--
A harmony of happiness and peace
Now vanished from the earth. But then, indeed,
The first man and his woman stood so near
To all their neighbours, sharing their delights
And moving in that new-made world so nigh
To beast and bird and saurian, that they--
The conscious creatures--knowing little more
Than woodland wisdom shared with all the rest,
Guessed not the gap between. Had ape or sloth
Broke heavenly ordinance and ate the Fruit,
Then had they been the lords of good and ill,
And haply ruled the kingdoms of the earth
With kinder wit than man. Yet it fell out
The creatures in the image of their God
Won the beasts’ homage by their shapes upright,
Yet shared their subjects’ ignorance. The stag,
The tawny bear, the elephant, the wolf,
The monkey folk and all the greater fowls,
Composed their theme and filled their human minds
With fascination. And betwixt themselves,
When Adam spoke to Eve or she to him,
Their converse was abrupt and cynical,
Untinged by human ruth, or tender care
Each for the other’s inner happiness.
And when the shadows lengthened and their God
Walked for awhile between them through the cool
Of dewy evenings, in their simple way,
They chattered to Him of the names they gave
Unto the great gier-eagle on the crag,
Or hippo, with his mighty nose asnort
Above the mud of Paradise. And He
Would listen with celestial gravity
And go His way again. The couple lacked
Much food for thought; indeed, they never thought;
For what had they to think about beside
The living present and the daily joy
Of food and drink and sleep, and playtime shared
With lesser things as beautiful as they?
Thus did they live through days not fuller fraught
With care and vision of to-morrow’s dawn
Than their companions of the hoof and pad
And claw and shining wing. Their mingled life
Was neither more complete nor beautiful
Than that of the striped tiger and his mate,
Who dwelt together in a porphyry den
A stone’s throw from the holt that Adam wove
Of living boughs and green wood broken down
Wherein to sleep by Eve. The very birds--
The warbler and the chaffinch and the wren,
Or the red mouse that loved the seeding grass--
Built snugger homes than they; and they would laugh
And wonder how the little, busy things,
Having no hands, could weave so close and true;
Or how the spider lined her nest with silk
To hold her pearly eggs. And when they slept
They dreamed of good to-morrows and no more,
Such as the children dream.

Then came to them
The scorching breath of knowledge, and their jest:
To make God laugh when He should come and see
Them clad with leaves and flowers, as their friends
Were clothed with pelt and feathers--their poor jest,
When they perceived them naked, brought them down
And cast them out into another world
Beyond the joys of Eden.

That first night
Their incipient spirits wept some mournful while,
Till the moon sank upon a dreary rim
Of desolation and they watched the stars
Sink to earth’s edge and vanish one by one,
Like tears that stole adown night’s cheek; and then
They turned to look again where Paradise
Lay in a purple shadow on the east
Under her palms and mountains; while along
Those far-flung boundaries dim sparks of fire
Twinkled to mark the soldier angels stand.
Adam at last, in hollow of a dune,
Whose horrent hair along its crest sprang up
In withered bents, a place of shelter found
Where the night wind came not; and there the man
His limping partner brought, then laid her down
To sleep till day; but it was keen and chill
And, finding that Eve slumbered, Adam came
As close as he well might to warm his blood
And draw a little of her golden mane
About his frozen bosom.

Thus they slept,
Until there broke on earth another day,
Whose light unwitting touched a wondrous sight
More pregnant and more precious to the world
Than Earth until that dayspring hour had known.
For when young Eve awakened, from her eyes
Flashed a new glory, something that till now
Had never trembled in those azure deeps;
And, with her arms about her dreaming man,
She called to him, and he arose to see
A change in her fair face, the which he read
In light of his own quickening. Her voice
Proclaimed a new evangel from her heart,
And full upon the thin and desert air
Poured in the ear of Adam such sweet words
That he forgot his hunger and his grief
And looked at her, the dew in her bright hair,
As subject on a queen.

“My love!” she cried;
And since the word had never till that dawn
Set the air singing, he forgot all else
And listened open-mouthed. “My own true love,
Dost thou not feel within thy bosom’s home
A strange new spirit, born for me and thee?
Dost thou not pant with such a joy that never,
Until this daybreak on the wilderness,
Thy soul hath throbbed to feel? In that sharp grief,
While the white seraphim did drive us out,
I felt the first faint thrill that fought the grief,
And when you bent and licked my wounded foot,
Even then there flashed to me a sudden bliss
That ministered the pain!”

“And I,” said he,
“If I had felt as now I feel--on fire
With tender adoration for my Eve--
Oh, then, I never should have played the coward
And flung the blame on you, my better part,
But taken it myself. This light within,
That burns far brighter than the eastern sky,
Doth show how mean and vile and base a thing
I did to bleat that thou hadst tempted me;
For now I grow to something greater far,
More wise and more discerning than before
I ate the Fruit of the Tree. O would that I
Had claimed the punishment, as meet I should,
And been cast out and suffered happily
Knowing that thou wert safe in Paradise;
For then had I but laughed at thorns and flint
And the cold night beneath the setting stars,
Knowing my Eve safe in our little lair.”
“Man, man!” she answered, “what our lair to me,
And what all Eden and the golden sun,
Without my Adam? What the crystal founts
And aubade of the birds in misty denes?
And what the morning mellowness of fruits,
Or subtle, magic fragrance born by night
From moony blossoms, that obeyed the moon
And oped, all others shutting? Eden’s self
Had been this ugly desert spread for Eve
Without thee; but beside thee, close and close,
Near as thy shadow, then these antres vast
And dreary vague of lion-coloured dust
Is paradise enough. For we have won
From that thrice-blessed Fruit a dearer thing
Than all the blossomy paths of Paradise
Knew how to offer. Through the taste of it
We are become above the cherubim,
Who never feel, beneath the rainbow light
That dreams upon their bosoms, what a man
And woman feel when love unveils their eyes.”
“We must tell God,” said Adam. “When He knows
What hides within the amethystine rind
Of that sweet globe forbidden, then will He
Make haste to eat of it Himself, and so,
Touched by ineffable and sacred love,
Seek us, all naked in the desert sand,
With pity on His awful brow. And then
Us will He soon forgive, for if He eats,
A tender, lambent flame of gentle ruth
Must burn within His everlasting Heart
And crown Him with pure mercy.” Thus the man;
And then the woman’s voice throbbed cheerfully.
“Him will we tell how this that He denied
Has lifted us above all lesser life
And made us wiser than the seraphim,
Who drove me forth so roughly that they scorched
My shoulder with their swords. But this I know:
If Michael and his winged ones had ate
From that kind fruit, as you and I did eat,
A gentle pity would have taught them sheathe
Their brands and made them weep to do us harm.
For what to them were we but beings twain,
No better than the silly, little apes
That would not come to us from out the wood
Until I tempted them with sugary fruits
And almonds that they loved? But now, but now
Are we above all creatures lifted up
And wedded into one--aye, wedded so
That life for me is Adam, and for him
Nothing but Eve. Let that our Maker hear,
And when He learns what now thou art to me
And I to thee, and what this lifeless dust
And shadeless solitude do seem to be
With thy brown hand in mine, then will He know
That we, His creatures, now have haply found
A dearer and more precious Paradise
Than all the hosts of Heaven yet thought upon.
Him we must tell, and from our wondrous cup
He too shall drink, that He, our God, may know
The blessed taste of mercy.”

“I will bid
The seraphim to pray to Him for mates!”
Cried Adam, in a fervour that all Heaven
Should share the knowledge dazzling. “Yea, let Him
Cast down his hosts in slumber and withdraw
A woman angel from each winged side,
So that they cast away their writhing swords
Far from them and rejoice, as we rejoice,
To share a life with dearer life than theirs.”
They spurred each other on, and laughed to think
Of the divine delight when God should hear
Their wondrous rede; and then together turned
Where Paradise, like a low silver cloud,
Fretted the dawn. But now to them there flew
Out of the waxing sky a messenger,
Who bade them keep their faces to the void
And nevermore approach the sinless paths
Their innocent feet had trod before they fell.
“Wisdom hath spoken, and it is decreed”--
With unimpassioned voice the angel spoke--
“That now ye thieves of wisdom through your span
Shall suffer first and bear the eternal fruit
Of your unnatural sin. And when the years
Have worn and withered you and broke you down,
Since Time hath now dominion over you,
Then shall you die and turn again to dust
From which the Almighty, in too generous mood,
Did lift you up. Begone--your way lies there!
And know that since the parents’ sin must be
On children visited for evermore,
Ye shall have seed and bring the race of man
Upon this earth to taste the bitter drink
That ye have brewed for every human lip.”
“But we have much to tell our God!” cried Eve;
While he, the servant of Omnipotence,
With level tones indifferent, broke to them
That never more their Maker should they see.
Thereon he spread his wings, and in the light
Of the red morning opened, petal-wise,
His gorgeous pinions, like a new-born flower
All opal tinted. So he flew away,
And soon was lost to sight upon the clouds
That day had fringed with fire.

A little while
The pair stood very silent; then young Eve,
Mother of all men, from her wide blue eyes
Shaking the tear, that like a diamond hung
One moment on her lashes, smiled and set
Her arms about our primal father’s neck.
“Be of good cheer; we have each other still,
My own brave heart!” said she; “and what this death
Shall prove, concerning which the angel spake,
We know not and we fear not; for ’tis sure
That death can never be so strong, or good,
Or radiant and enduring and supreme
As love, that we have won to light our way
And guide us through all deserts and all griefs.
And since He will not let us speak to Him,
Or tell Him of our treasure, it shall flow
For babes and sucklings. With their mother’s milk
I’ll teach my little children how to love.”

WHERE MY TREASURE IS

Eternal Mother, when my race is run,
Will that I pass beneath the risen sun,
Suffer my sight to dim upon some spot
That changes not.

Let my last pillow be the land I love
With fair infinity of blue above;
The roaming shadow of a silver cloud,
My only shroud.

A little lark above the morning star,
Shall shrill the tidings of my end afar;
The muffled music of a lone sheep-bell
Shall be my knell.

And where stone heroes trod the Moor of old;
Where ancient wolf howled round a granite fold;
Hide thou, beneath the heather’s new-born light,
My endless night.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Some long lines of poetry have been rewrapped in this text edition.