Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/30

20 In every land they lay them down to die.

Woe to the remnant of the noble band!

The most are dead who that dear music built—

Their hymns shall be a nation's memory.

The few ride on, their lips too firm for song;

On many a lonely field they find how hard

The bright rebellion is that showed so fair

'Gainst this world’s wrong; now, taught within, they learn

What might it takes to wield a heavenly sword!"

He could not stay the spirit's wandering cries,

The music of the breaking heart of man,

Made hoarse by passion now, with grief grown stern:

"Is God then weary? has the flaming sphere,

Belted with burning noons and starred with night,

Paused in its revolution in the deep?

And that young spirit that there stands imprisoned,

Throned in the sapphire of crystàlline light,

Or in the starry concave of deep sleep

Reposes, till new dawn with rose-flushed dreams

Kisses his eyelids wide—shall he be stricken,

Creation's precious jewel, heart and eye