Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/388

 What was the fate

of Basil Moss who, thirty years ago,

A brave, high-minded, but impetuous youth,

Left happy homesteads in the sweetest isle

That wears the sober light of Northern suns?

What happened him, the man who crossed far, fierce

Sea-circles of the hoarse Atlantic—who,

Without a friend to help him in the world,

Commenced his battle in this fair young land,

A Levite in the Temple Beautiful

Of Art, who struggled hard, but found that here

Both Bard and Painter learn, by bitter ways,

That they are aliens in the working world,

And that all Heaven's templed clouds at morn

And sunset do not weigh one loaf of bread!

This was his tale. For years he kept himself

Erect, and looked his troubles in the face

And grappled them; and, being helped at last

By one who found she loved him, who became

The patient sharer of his lot austere,

He beat them bravely back; but like the heads

Of Lerna's fabled hydra, they returned

From day to day in numbers multiplied;

And so it came to pass that Basil Moss

(Who was, though brave, no mental Hercules,

Who hid beneath a calmness forced, the keen

Heart-breaking sensibility—which is

The awful, wild, specific curse that clings

Forever to the Poet's twofold life)

Gave way at last; but not before the hand

Of sickness fell upon him—not before

The drooping form and sad averted eyes

Of hectic Hope, that figure far and faint,

Had given all his later thoughts a tongue—

It is too late—too late!"

There is no need

To tell the elders of the English world

What followed this. From step to step, the man—

Now fairly gripped by fierce Intemperance—

Descended in the social scale; and though

He struggled hard at times to break away,