Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/27

Rh When to the littleness of mortal act

His wisdom the eternal issue joins.

O, harken! we are young; we cry for light,

Youth's cry; but wisdom is an ancient thing.

O, raise me fallen, and restore me lost,

That I, adventuring the great defeat,

May in the courts of heaven at last unhelm,

And in Christ's treasury repose my sword!

Now the ninth year declining showed a pass

Deep sunk, whose black and monstrous horns transfixed

The element serene; far from that shade

Roved the cold moon, and showed the savage steep,

Whose secret heights, untraveled by man's eye,

Only the majesty of heaven stayed

With bounds, and to the wild Sierra's snows

Their starry limit set; here was he come.

So far his soul had wandered from its youth,

So long endured in pain the stroke without,

The change within; and ever at his heart

Gnawed the slow death; if thou requirest more,

Thy own breast ask, nor search another's wounds.

Years rose and set, but he was shelterless—

A man unknown save to the heavenly powers;

Alone he was, except in memory,