Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/29

Rh Making a third where he with memory sat

Keeping o'er beauty dead eternal watch,

And, shining, lift his dry eyes from the ground,

And lull the venom feeding at his heart;

Such virtue did it draw from other days;

And with its orb his lids sank down in sleep,

The soul within him slumbering, and dear light

From eyes that cannot mourn fell on his breast,

And under morning stars he urged his way;

And roaming sang; but not the song of prime,—

A music of the darkened fields of night,

Earth-sorrow, and the wandering cries of night:

"O still expectant band of singing youth,

Who from the rose of dawn steal prophecy

And holy hope, and chanting triumph go,

Filling the morning air with sacred names!

O fortunate if in your faith ye die,

While yet the sun-flush leaps from mount to mount,

And glory's purpose dreams upon your brows!

O, one with them, me too desire has raised

To fly beyond the sensual reach of man

And break the bounds of earth's prosperity!

When hath their virtue shrunk to Nature's will?

And what their profit—do they grow and thrive?