Page:The torrent and The night before.djvu/31

 Quaint hordes of eyeless phantoms did appear, Twisting and turning in a bootless chase,— When, like an exile given by God's grace To feel once more a human atmosphere, I caught the world's first murmur, large and clear, Flung from a singing river's endless race.

Then, through a magic twilight from below, I heard its grand sad song as in a dream: Life's wild infinity of mirth and woe It sang me; and, with many a changing gleam, Across the music of its onward flow, I saw the cottage lights of Wessex beam.

SUPREMACY is a drear and lonely tract of hell From all the common gloom removed afar: A flat, sad land it is, where shadows are Whose lorn estate my verse may never tell. I walked among them and I knew them well: Men I had slandered on life's little star For churls and sluggards; and I knew the scar Upon their brows of woe ineffable.

But as I went majestic on my way, Into the dark they vanished, one by one, Till, with a shaft of God's eternal day, The dream of all my glory was undone,— And, with a fool's importunate dismay, I heard the dead men singing in the sun.

THREE QUATRAINS As long as Fame's imperious music rings Will poets mock it with crowned words august; And haggard men will clamber to be kings As long as Glory weighs itself in dust.