Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/158

130 He loved the town—

Not less he loved the ever-deepening brown

Of summer twilights on the enchanted hills;

And long would listen to the starts and thrills

Of birds that sang and rustled in the trees,

Or watch the footsteps of the wandering breeze

And the quick, wingèd shadows flashing by,

Or birds that slowly wheeled across the unclouded sky.

All these were written on the poet's soul;

But he knew, too, the utmost, distant goal

Of the human mind. His fiery thought did run

To Time's beginning, ere yon central sun

Had warmed to life the swarming broods of men.

In waking dreams, his many-visioned ken

Clutcht the large, final destiny of things.

He heard the starry music, and the wings

Of beings unfelt by others thrilled the air

About him. Yet the loud and angry blare

Of tempests found an echo in his verse,

And it was here that lovers did rehearse

The ditties they would sing when, not too soon,

Came the warm night;—shadows, and stars, and moon.

Who heard his songs were filled with noble rage,

And wars took fire from his prophetic page—

Most righteous wars, wherein, 'midst blood and tears,

The world rushed onward through a thousand years.

And still he made the gentle sounds of peace

Heroic; bade the nation's anger cease!

Bitter his songs of grief for those who fell—

And for all this the people loved him well.

They loved him well and therefore, on a day,

They said with one accord: "Behold how gray