Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/75

Rh Though long thy verse enshrine their hopes long dead.

Song-stroke or sword-stroke, action dies away;

Soon orbs the past, another dawn renews

The woundless tyrant, plated with dense mail,

And in the selfishness of all his realm

More panoplied than in his showy guards.

In song a land expires, it is not born;

And all the immortal glories of the lyre,

The blazon of eternal memory,

Are pæans of lost races worn away,

The death-chants of the nations whence they rose.

The pouring music of the mighty world

Rounds to new ages, and a cycle dies

In each proud epic; mute the foughten field,

Broken the chivalry, desolate the bower,

Sepulchred in the high-resounding verse.

All music is the requiem of the soul,

And breathes about the spirit's flight its dirge,

And sorrows in its track till heard no more."

He ended, lost in spaces far away.

But Victor followed where the Roamer marked

A lank form, blunted with a thought-starved face,

That, like a listening animal behind

Intent lay crouched; human it seemed, and was,

Dehumanized; all head, all eyes, all ears,