Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/22

12 Rise like a mist that blotteth out the stars.

Dark was the mind, the heart within was dark,

And all his soul was sunk in memory.

What then he was he knows whose heavy head

The passionless stupor of despair bows down

In solitary places that he loved!

So mute among the moveless stones he sat,

And hid his face within the sea's gray robe,

And heard obscure the roaring of the deep;

Till in the East the red and ragged moon

Across the hollow waters and the night

Struck on his eyes and he once more was man.

O, sharp the eternal pain began to gnaw!

Hoarse the incessant trampling of the surf

Beat up the wind; athwart the western stars,

Crag-like, hung storm, and all its heights were fire;

And midway of the waste, 'twixt tossing seas

And those dark pastures of the roving flame,

No life but his,—and his a life bereft,

Brooding, and tranced, and full of fantasy.

The black marsh and the mounded sand stood still;

Old willows whispered near; the beach-grass sighed,

In the low moonshine rustling its thin blades,