Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/55

Rh Far-off the purple mountains loom,—

Vague and far-off, and fixt as fate,

Which hide from sight that land unknown

Where, ever, like a carven stone

The setting sun doth stand and wait,

And men cry not: "Too late! too late!"

And sorrow turns to a golden gloom.

But O, the long journey all unled

By track of traveler o'er the plain—

The stony desert, bleak and rude,

The bruisèd feet and the tired brain;

And O, the twofold solitude,

The doubt, the danger, and the dread!

XXX—THE SOWER

I

went forth to sow;

His eyes were dark with woe;

He crusht the flowers beneath his feet,

Nor smelt the perfume, warm and sweet,

That prayed for pity everywhere.

He came to a field that was harried

By iron, and to heaven laid bare;

He shook the seed that he carried

O'er that brown and bladeless place.

He shook it, as God shakes hail

Over a doomèd land,

When lightnings interlace

The sky and the earth, and His wand

Of love is a thunder-flail.

Thus did that Sower sow;

His seed was human blood,

And tears of women and men.