Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/801

 665. The Nameless One

Roll forth, my song, like the rushing river, That sweeps along to the mighty sea; God will inspire me while I deliver My soul of thee!

Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening Amid the last homes of youth and eld, That once there was one whose veins ran lightning No eye beheld.

Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour, How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom, No star of all heaven sends to light our Path to the tomb.

Roll on, my song, and to after ages Tell how, disdaining all earth can give, He would have taught men, from wisdom's pages, The way to live.

And tell how trampled, derided, hated, And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong, He fled for shelter to God, who mated His soul with song.

—With song which alway, sublime or vapid, Flow'd like a rill in the morning beam, Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid— A mountain stream.

Tell how this Nameless, condemn'd for years long To herd with demons from hell beneath, Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long For even death.