Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/35

Rh These first revealed its face and next did shroud,

While still the daylight grew, and joy thereby

Lit all the windy stretches of the sky—

Until a shadow darkened from the east

And sprang upon the ocean like a beast.

PART II

I

was a field green and fragrant with grass and flowers, and flooded with sunlight, and the air above it throbbed with the songs of birds. It was yet morning when a great darkness spread over the earth, and out of the darkness lightning, and after the lightning fire that consumed every green thing; and the singing birds fell dying upon the blackened grass. The thunder and the flame past, but it was still dark—till a ray of light touched the field's edge and grew, little by little. Then one who listened heard—not the songs of birds again, but the flutter of broken wings.

II—THE TRAVELER

a traveler on the road

Whose back was bent beneath a load;

His face was worn with mortal care,

His frame beneath its burden shook,

Yet onward, restless, he did fare

With mien unyielding, fixt, a look

Set forward in the empty air

As he were reading an unseen book.