Page:The New Penelope.djvu/288

282 Yet 'tis of little consequence,

To-day, to know how thou wert made, or whence

Earthquake and flood have brought thee: thou art here,

At once the master that men love and fear—

Whom they have sought by many strange devices,

In ancient river-beds; in interstices

Of hardest quartz; upon the wave-wet strand,

Where curls the tawny sand

By mountain torrents hurried to the main,

And thence hurled back again:—

Yes, suffered, dared, and patiently

Offered up everything, O gold, to thee!—

Home, wife and children, native soil, and all

That once they deemed life's sweetest, at thy call;

Fled over burning plains; in deserts fainted;

Wearied for months at sea—yet ever painted

Thee as the shining Mecca, that to gain

Invalidated pain,

Cured the sick soul—made nugatory evil

Of man or devil.

Alas, and well-a-day! we know

What idle dreams were these that fooled men so.

On yonder hillside sleep in nameless graves,

To which they went untended, the poor slaves

Of fruitless toil; the victims of a fever

Called home-sickness—no remedy found ever;

Or slain by vices that grow rankly where

Men madly do and dare,

In alternations of high hope and deep abysses

Of recklessnesses.

Painfully, and by violence:

Even as heaven is taken, thou wert dragged whence

Nature had hidden thee—whose face is worn

With anxious furrows, and her bosom torn