Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/121

Rh There wakes the chord that tunes the whirling sphere,

Amphion's art, heard in the rising deep,

And should it falter, heaven and earth were dark."

"Whence hast thou music, and the charm of words

Few speak and live?" the old man, thoughtful, said:

"Another dawn is shining in thy face."

Then, gladdening in his heart, the Roamer spoke;

"Love taught me this, whom mortal once I knew,

And felt upon my cheek his burning bloom.

O young, prophetic years! how long I live

With half my heart in the other world!" O'erhead

Morning was kindled in the lonely sky

A lonelier presence; as in Moslem lands,

Limned on the desert drifts and silentness,

Pilgrims to Mecca or to Kairouan

Seem waifs of nature, there he stood enskied

While the unclouded glory, pulsing on,

Beat up high heaven, and dipped with golden wing

The azure element, and made earth pure

With the celestial miracle of dawn.

"Whatever rapture fills that other world,

Build thou, ere night, thy earthly mansion fair,"

The old man said, and drew the Roamer on,

A little way, along the radiant rock,

Beyond the great Divide; its crown disclosed