Page:Poems, Volume 2, Coates, 1916.djvu/131



E trekked our way to the desert,

My soul and I, alone:

We passed beyond the world of men,

And all men call their own,

And came where never yet were laws

On parchment writ or stone.

Mid vast and barren stretches

Where Age speaks not to Age,

Where ne'er doth spring a living thing

Save the everlasting sage,

I felt as the savage coyote, free—

With a freedom naught could cage.

No milestones mark the desert:

Though seasons come and go,

Where the arid sands unmeasured lie

None through the hour-glass flow;

The desert has no memory—

Nor can of promise know.

Unfettered mid the silence,

Escaped from rule and law,