Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/58

48 That other's eyes filled their blue deeps with fire,

And fair the spirit floated in his face

Brightly upraised; there life's mysterious throe

On every feature set its delicate seal.

"Her child!" with echoing lips, he seemed to say;

"Dear motherhood!" he sighed, half-heard; and, rapt,

Thought gathered in him from the speechless deeps;

Then broke the sounding wave: "O mother-might!

O passion of the child-heart streaming back

Upon the breasts of being! O first sweet throb,

When from the ocean-filling horn of morn,

And from the porphyry-clouded font of eve,

God poured on me the rose and amber light

Baptismal, and my soul's awakening was,

And all my boyhood was one altar-watch!

And when beneath the starry roof of years

My soul caught glimpses of this glowing frame,

This rock-ribbed base of earth, this broad-flung sky,

This seamless air, the realm and throne of light,

This blossoming pave inlaid with azure seas,

This carve of riven-cloven continents,

This fret of rainbows and the wingèd winds,