Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/226

POEMS OF OCCASION Whom most she loved; nor had his office ceased

But for her mandate: "Seek again thine own;

The walks of men shall draw thy steps no more!"

Softly, as from a feast

The guest departs that hears a low recall,

He went, and left behind his harp and coronal.

"Return!" she cried, "unto thine own return!

Too long the pilgrimage; too long the dream

In which, lest thou shouldst be companionless,

Unto the oracles thou hadst access,—

The sacred groves that with my presence yearn."

The voice was heard by mountain, dell, and stream,

Meadow and wilderness—

All fair things vestured by the changing year,

Which now awoke in joy to welcome one most dear.

"He comes!" declared the unseen ones that haunt

The dark recesses, the infinitude

Of whispering old oaks and soughing pines.

"He comes!" the warders of the forest shrines

Sang joyously. "His spirit ministrant

Henceforth with us shall walk the underwood,

Till mortal ear divines

Its music added to our choral hymn,

Rising and falling far through archways deep and dim!"

The orchard fields, the hillside pastures green,

Put gladness on; the rippling harvest-wave

Ran like a smile, as if a moment there

His shadow poised in the midsummer air

Above; the cataract took a pearly sheen

Even as it leapt; the winding river gave

A sound of welcome where

He came, and trembled, far as to the sea

It moves from rock-ribbed heights where its dark fountains be.

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