Page:The Garden of Years.djvu/40



Years melted into years as still I strayed,

And Life, still searching, from her pack withdrew

More novel baubles, offered me in trade

For those unvalued days, wherewith I paid

Because with them I knew not what to do:

Till at the end, I smiled to think of you

As but a memory. Fool! How swift I found,

Like the mechanic mole, I burrowed through

Oblivion, an inch below the ground!

One touch, and all my blindness lay displayed.

I know, should some one ask me which was best

Of all the lands wherewith our world is starred,

There could be but one answer to the test.

A rover heart had urged me on a quest

Wherein all gates of distance were unbarred,

Yet never was I able to discard

The thought of that young land that gave me birth:

Still in my memory’s holiest shrine I guard

That virgin daughter of the grim old earth,

The star-eyed White Republic of the West!