Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/135

Rh And no hand breaks that bond through endless time,"

Returned the Roamer: "Thou hast proved it well,

Prompted within by the undying spark.

The individual and the mass are one.

In my own youth I caught the sacred lore,

In a far country that thou knowest not of;

There lies my land, a seat of growing good,

A seedplace of the nations, storing time,

A harvest of the universal earth,

A power whereof the armament is peace,

A state proceeding from all wills made one,

A realm where all men reign, a commonwealth,

A stronghold of mankind; there all men toil,

And wisdom labors on the shield of truth,

And on the stammering lips of knowledge shapes

New ages rising, and prophetic hears

The pæan of the final victory."

As signal fire to signal fire is flashed

Across dividing seas, the young prince heard

And kindled, and as light revisits late

A sunset peak with the sweet rose of eve

After the sun is gone, and soon dies off,—

Touched with that message of the dawn, he flushed

And faded, to his own dark self withdrawn

And silent mystery; reverence he made