Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/86

76 So long a leash? and doth thy spirit of sense

Pluck its gross nurture from this crystal air?"

"Across hell's moor, thou sayest?" a second spoke.

"O soul of daring! art thou—" cried a third,

But on his sentence broke the other's will:

"Thou livest?" and to his lips some question sprang,

And died; "but earth remembers not my name

That, to the light ascending, clouds o'ertook;

Whate'er I was, more I shall never be."

Then he, the poet, though denied the bays:

"Not unaccompanied by signs of grace

Thou comest; o'er the fiery heath, whose gloom

Washes the northward, where last night we kept

The morning watch, a solitary star,

Some heavenly exile, slipped from God's white hosts,

Moved beautiful, as in its element,

Where never blessèd light was seen before.

Heaven send us good of that bright augury!"

Crimson and amber lapped the horizon's edge

Like a low sea, whence rose the dawn, dark blue

Brightening with light; and, like a shallow cup,

Immeasurably broad with rolling moor,

Slated with mist, the lowlands fell away.

Morn laced the South with mountains vaporous,

Translucent films and shining levels far,

With spots of cloud and belted fog midway,