Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/126

116 The small, bloom-windowed, sweet, ascetic cell,—

And took the staff of the world's pilgrimage,

Farewelled the stork's tower and the green-domed hill,

And by the poet's grave unclasped our hearts,—

How hast thou fared, brother, since then? we sought

The light divine." The other, smooth of brow,

High-featured, pale, large-eyed, answered, "I prayed

Among the mulberries at the road's steep end,

And with the staff of prayer journeyed thenceforth

In this life's wilderness; cities and schools

I threaded, unappeased, and fied, still young,

Into the desert of the boundless sands,

Eve's scarlet deep, and still night's hollow vault

Star-swarmed, where most the Omnipotent is nigh.

The heavens declare His glory, infinite power,

The wandering life His will, implacable fate.

There the Heaven-dweller, sole supreme, became

My habitation, and His works my world,—

Symbols of Him through whom alone they beam,

Best-known where shepherds watch their flocks by night

And see the upper deep, with angels thronged,

Hosannas sing,—so light from Him derived

Radiates through nature, which, His mirror, shines.