Chapter II

With these alone he draws in magic lines, Faces that people dreams, and chiefly one Happy and brilliant as the northern sun, And by its darling side there gleams and shines One of God's children with the laughing signs Of dimples, and glad accents, and sweet cries, That angels are and heaven's memories: The wizard thus my soul's estate divines;

All it holds dear he sets alone apart, Etches the past in likeness of dim groves Silvered in quiet rime and with rare art, In crystal spoils and fairy treasure-troves, He draws the picture of the happy heart, By those who love it most, whom most it loves.

IN SNOW-TIME

I have seen things that charmed the heart to rest: Faint moonlight on the towers of ancient towns, Flattering the soul to dream of old renowns; The first clear silver on the mountain crest Where the lone eagle by his chilly nest Called the lone soul to brood serenely free; Still pools of sunlight shimmering in the sea, Calm after storm, wherein the storm seemed blest.

But here a peace deeper than peace is furled, Enshrined and chaliced from the changeful hour; The snow is still, yet lives in its own light. Here is the peace which brooded day and night, Before the heart of man with its wild power Had ever spurned or trampled the great world.

TO A CANADIAN LAD KILLED IN THE WAR

O noble youth that held our honour in keeping, And bore it sacred through the battle flame, How shall we give full measure of acclaim To thy sharp labour, thy immortal reaping? For though we sowed with doubtful hands, half sleeping, Thou in thy vivid pride hast reaped a nation, And brought it in with shouts and exultation, With drums and trumpets, with flags flashing and leaping.

Let us bring pungent wreaths of balsam, and tender Tendrils of wild-flowers, lovelier for thy daring, And deck a sylvan shrine, where the maple parts The moonlight, with lilac bloom, and the splendour Of suns unwearied; all unwithered, wearing Thy valor stainless in our heart of hearts.

THE CLOSED DOOR

_The dew falls and the stars fall, The sun falls in the west, But never more Through the closed door, Shall the one that I loved best Return to me: A salt tear is the sea, All earth's air is a sigh, But they never can mourn for me With my heart's cry, For the one that I loved best Who caressed me with her eyes, And every morning came to me, With the beauty of sunrise, Who was health and wealth and all, Who never shall answer my call, While the sun falls in the west, The dew falls and the stars fall._

BY A CHILD'S BED

She breathed deep, And stepped from out life's stream Upon the shore of sleep; And parted from the earthly noise, Leaving her world of toys, To dwell a little in a dell of dream.

Then brooding on the love I hold so free, My fond possessions come to be Clouded with grief; These fairy kisses, This archness innocent, Sting me with sorrow and disturbed content: I think of what my portion might have been; A dearth of blisses, A famine of delights, If I had never had what now I value most; Till all I have seems something I have lost; A desert underneath the garden shows, And in a mound of cinders roots the rose.

Here then I linger by the little bed, Till all my spirit's sphere, Grows one half brightness and the other dead, One half all joy, the other vague alarms; And, holding each the other half in fee, Floats like the growing moon That bears implicitly Her lessening pearl of shadow Clasped in the crescent silver of her arms.

ELIZABETH SPEAKS

(Aetat Six)

Now every night we light the grate And I sit up till _really_ late; My Father sits upon the right, My Mother on the left, and I Between them on an ancient chair, That once belonged to my Great-Gran, Before my Father was a man. We sit without another light; I really, truly never tire Watching that space, as black as night, That hangs behind the fire; For there sometimes, you know, The dearest, queerest little sparks, Without a sound creep to and fro; Sometimes they form in rings Or lines that look like many things, Like skipping ropes, or hoops, or swings: Before you know what you're about, They all go out!

My Father says that they are gnomes, Beyond the grate they have their homes, In a tall, black, and windy town, Behind a door we cannot see. Often when it's time for bed The children run away instead, Out through the door to see our fire, Then their angry parents come With every candle in the town, The beadle with his lantern too, And search and rummage up and down, To catch the children as they play, Between the rows of new-mown hay, And bring them home; (They must be, O, so very small, How do they capture them at all? But then they must be very _dear_); When they can find no more They blow a horn we cannot hear, And march with the beadle at their head, Right through the little open door, Then close it tight and go to bed.

My Mother says that may be so; (They both agree they're _gnomes_, you know). She says, she thinks that every night, The gnomes have had a fearful fight; Their valiant General has been slain, And all the soldiers leave the camp To dig his grave upon the plain; They drag the General on a gun; Every bandsman has a lamp And there's a torch for every one, They dig his grave with bayonets And wrap him grandly in his flag, Then they gather in a ring, The band plays very soft and low, And all the soldiers sing. (Of course we cannot hear, you know,) Then some one calls "The enemy comes!" They muffle up their pipes and drums; Every soldier in a fright Puts out his light. Then hand in hand, and very still, They clamber up the dark, dark hill And hold their breath tight--tight.

(I'd like to know which tale is right.)

O! there is something I forgot! Sometimes one little spark burns on Long after the rest have gone.

My Father says that lamp is left By a little crooked, crotchety man, Who cannot find his wayward son; When the horn begins to blow, He has to drop his light and run. Of course he limps so slow He squeezes through the very last, When he is gone the naughty scamp Jumps up and puff! out goes the lamp.

My Mother says that is the light, Borne by the very bravest knight; He is so very, very brave, He would not leave his General's grave, And when the Enemy General tries To make him tell where his General lies, He answers boldly, "I--will--not!" Then they shoot him on the spot, And give a horrid, dreadful shout, And then of course his light goes out.

I sit and think when they are through, Which tale I like best of the two. Sometimes I like the _Father_ one; It is such fun! But then I love the _Mother_ one, That dear brave soldier and the rest:-- _Now which one do you like the best?_

A LEGEND OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY

At Bethlehem upon the hill, The day was done, the night was nigh, The dusk was deep and had its will, The stars were very small and still, Like unblown tapers, faint and high.

The noises had begun to fall, And quiet stole upon the place, The howl of dogs along the wall, Voices that from the houstops call And answer, and the grace

Of some low breath of even-song Grew faint apace: between the rocks In misty pastures, and along The dim hillside with crook and thong The lonely shepherds watched their flocks.

The Inn-master within the Inn Called loudly out after this sort, "Draw no more water, cease the din, Pile the loose fodder, and begin To turn the mules out of the court.

The time has come to shut the gate, Make way," he cried, and then began To sweep and set the litter straight, And pile the saddle-bags and freight Of some belated caravan.

The drivers whirled their beasts about, And beat them on with shoutings great; The nosebags slipped, the feed flew out, The water-buckets reeled, the rout Went jostling onward to the gate.

Came one unto the master then, Hasting to find him through the gloom, "Give us a place to rest;" and when He spake, the master cried again, "There is no room--there is no room."

"But I have come from Nazareth, Full three days' toil to Bethlehem"-- "What matters that," the master saith, "For here is hardly room for breath; The guests curse me for crowding them."

"Hold, Sir! leave me not so, I pray"-- He plucked him sudden by the sleeve, "My wife is with me and doth say, Her hour hath come, I beg you, stay, And make some plan for her relief."

"Two hours ago you might have had The chamber wherein stands the loom; But then to drive me wholly mad, Came this great merchant from Baghdad, And thrust himself into the room.

"There is no other shelf to call A bed--But just beyond the gate, You may find shelter in a stall, If there be shelter left at all, You may be even now too late."

Beyond the gate within the night, A figure rested on the ground, About her all the rout took flight, The dizzy noise, the flashing light, The mules were tramping all around.

Leaning in mute expectancy, Beneath a stunted sycamore, She added darkness utterly, To the dim light, the shrouded tree, By her hands held her face before.

And yet to mock her eye's desire, The cavern into which she stared, Was lit with disks and lines of fire; When triple darkness did conspire, The secret founts of light were bared.

And all the wheeling fire was rife With haunting fears, her broken breath Grew short with this prophetic strife; What was for one the dawn of life, Would be for one the dawn of death.

Meantime the stranger with a lamp, Which lit the darkness, small and wan, Searched where the mules did tramp and stamp, Amid the litter and the damp, For some small place to rest upon.

And there against the furthest wall, Where the black shade was dense and deep, He found a mean and meager stall, But there when the weak light did fall, He found a little lad asleep.

He lifted up his childish head, And smiled serenely at the light, "And have you found him, then," he said, "My brother who I thought was dead, I lost him in the crowd last night.

"His name is Ezra, and he is So tall and strong that when I try, Standing on tiptoe for a kiss I could not reach, except for this, He lifts me up so easily.

"I had two little doves to take Up to the booths"--he held his breath, "Peace, child! and for your mother's sake, Yield me this place--nay, nay! awake! My weary wife is sick to death."

"I will," the little lad replied "I promised never to forget My mother, years ago she died, I will lie out on the hillside, And I may find dear Ezra yet."

And now she drooped her weary head, Within that comfortless manger, It might have been a palace bed, With canopy of gold instead, So little did she know or care.

_Gentle Jesus, slumber mild,
Lullaby, lullaby;
Succored by a little child,
Lull, lullaby._

_You of children are the king,
Lullaby, lullaby;
Sovereign to all ministering,
Lull, lullaby._

_Grace you bring them from above,
Lullaby, lullaby;
They give promise, lisping love,
Lull, lullaby._

And out upon the darkened hill, With all the quiet-pastured sheep, Charmed by the falling of a rill, Where in the pool it cadenced still, The little lad was fallen asleep.

All his young dreams were robed with power. And glad were all his vision folk; He wandered on from hour to hour, With Ezra, happy as a flower That blooms safe-shadowed by the oak.

But once before his dreams were told, He thought he saw within the deep Vault of the sky a rose unfold, Made all of fire and lovely gold, Whose petals seemed to glow and leap,

As if each dewy, crystal cell Were a great angel live with light, And trembling to the coronal, Merging in sheen of pearl and shell, With his great comrade, equal, bright,

Until the petals flashed and sprang, And folded to the central heart: Music there was that showered and rang, As if each angel harped and sang, Controlled by some celestial art.

The child saw splendor without name, And turned and smiled, and all the noise Of strings and singing sank; it came Faint and dream-altered, yet the same, Soft-tempered to his mother's voice.

_Slumber, slumber, gentle child,
Lullaby, lullaby;
Sweet as henna, dear and mild,
Lull, lullaby._

_You the first of all the race,
Lullaby, lullaby;
Gave your master early grace,
Lull, lullaby._

_Gave a shelter for his head,
Lullaby, lullaby;
Took the chilly earth instead,
Lull, lullaby._

_Now take comfort infant earth,
Lullaby, lullaby;
Jesus Christ is come to birth,
Lull, lullaby._

_For his principality,
Lullaby, lullaby;
Children cluster at his knee,
Lull, lullaby._

_Hail the heaven-happy age,
Lullaby, lullaby;
Love begins his pilgrimage,
Lull, lullaby._

WILLOW-PIPES

So in the shadow by the nimble flood He made her whistles of the willow wood, Flutes of one note with mellow slender tone; (A robin piping in the dusk alone). Lively the pleasure was the wand to bruise, And notch the light rod for its lyric use, Until the stem gave up its tender sheath, And showed the white and glistening wood beneath. And when the ground was covered with light chips, Grey leaves and green, and twigs and tender slips, They placed the well-made whistles in a row And left them for the careless wind to blow.

ANGEL

Come to me when grief is over,
When the tired eyes,
Seek thy cloudy wings to cover
Close their burning skies.

Come to me when tears have dwindled
Into drops of dew,
When the sighs like sobs re-kindled
Are but deep and few.

Hold me like a crooning mother,
Heal me of the smart;
All mine anguish let me smother
In thy brooding heart.

CHRISTMAS FOLK-SONG

Those who die on Christmas Day (I heard the triumphant Seraph say) Will be remembered, for they died Upon the Holy Christmastide; When they attain to Paradise, The Angels with the tranquil Eyes Will ask if Jesus rules on Earth The Anniversary of His Birth; This Question do they ask alway Of those who die on Christmas Day.

Those who are born on Christmas Day (I heard the triumphant Seraph say) Will bring again the Peace on Earth That came with gentle Christ His Birth; They may be lowly Folk and poor Living about the Manger Door, They may be Kings of Mighty Line, Their Lives alike will be benign; To them belongeth Peace alway, Those who are born on Christmas Day.

FROM BEYOND

Here there is balm for every tender heart
Wounded by life;
Rest for each one who bore a valiant part
Crushed in the strife.

I suffered there and held a losing fight
Even to the grave;
And now I know that it was very right
To suffer and be brave.

THE LEAF

This silver-edged geranium leaf Is one sign of a bitter grief Whose symbols are a myriad more; They cluster round a carven stone Where she who sleeps is never alone For two hearts at the core,

Bound with her heart make one of three, A trinity in unity, One sentient heart that grieves; And myriad dark-leaved memories keep Vigil above the triune sleep,-- Edged all with silver are the leaves.

A MYSTERY PLAY

CHARACTERS

The Father. The Child. Death. Angels.
Two Travellers.

* * * * *

_The even settles still and deep, In the cold sky the last gold burns, Across the colour snow flakes creep. Each one from grey to glory turns Then flutters into nothingness; The frost down falls with mighty stress Through the swift cloud that parts on high; The great stars shrivel into less In the hard depth of the iron sky._

* * * * *

_The Child:_

What is that light, dear father,
That light in the dark, dark sky?

_The Father:_

Those are the lights of the city
And the villages thereby.

_The Child:_

There must be fire in the city
To throw that yellow glare;
And fire in the little villages
On all the hearthstones there.

_The Father, musing:_

Yea, flames are on the hearthstones;
The ovens are full of bread,
But here the coals are dying
And the flames are dead.

_The Child:_

What is the cold, dear father?
It stings like an angry bee.
Wherever it stings my hand turns white,
See!

_The Father:_

The cold is a beast, my dear one,
With his paws he tears at the thatch,
His breath is a curse and a warning,
You can see it creep on the latch.

_The Child:_

If 'tis a wolf, dear father,
That lies with his paw on the floor,
Let us heat the spade in the embers
And drive him away from the door.

_Angels:_

God is the power of growth, In the snail and the tree, God is the power of growth In the heart of the man.

_The Child:_

Did you not hear the singing,
Voices overhead?
Mother's voice and Ruth's voice,
Voices of the dead.

_The Father, musing:_

Our Ruth died in the springtime,
With the spade I turned the sod,
We buried her by the brier rose,
Her life is hid with God.

_The Child:_

All summer long in the garden
No roses came to the tree.
Father, was it for sorrow,
Sorrow for thee and me?

_The Father:_

Roses grew in the garden,
I saw them at morning and even,
Shadows of earthly roses
They bloomed for fingers in heaven.

* * * * *

_The air is very clear and still, The moonlight falls from half the sphere; The shadow from the silver hill Fills half the vale, and half is clear As the moon's self with cloudless snow; By the dead stream the alders throw Their shadows, shot with tingling spars; On the sheer height the elm trees glow: Their tops are tangled with the stars._

* * * * *

_The Child:_

Father, the coals are dying,
See! I have heated the spade,
Let me throw the door wide open,
I will not be afraid.

_The Father:_

Let me kiss you once on the forehead,
And once on your darling eyes;
We may see them both at the dawning,
In the dales of Paradise.

_The Child:_

And if I only see them,
I will tell them how you smiled;
For the wolf, you know, is angry,
And I am a little child.

_Death:_

Undaunted spirits, I give thee peace, For a world of dread-- Calm. For desperate toil-- Rest. Thou who didst say, When the waters of poverty Waxed deep, deep, What we bear is best; Just ones, I give thee sleep.

_First Traveller:_

Keep up your spirits, I know There's a cabin under the hill, The fellow will make a roaring fire; We'll heat our hands and drink our fill And go warm to our heart's desire!

_Second Traveller:_

The door is open,--Heigho! This pair will claim neither crown nor groat, The man has gripped his garden spade As if he would dig his grave in the snow; The boy has the face of a saint, I trow; His brow says, "I was not afraid!"

_First Traveller:_

Ah well, these things must be, you know! Gather your sables around your throat; Give us that story about the monk, His niece, and the wandering conjurer, Just to keep our blood astir.

_The Angels:_

The heart of God, The worlds and man, Are fashioned and moulded, In a subtle plan; Passion outsurges, Sweeps far but converges: Nothing is lost, Sod or stone, But comes to its own; Bear well thy joy, 'Tis mixed with alloy, Bear well thy grief, 'Tis a rich full sheaf: Gather the souls that have passed in the night, Theirs is the peace and the light.

* * * * *

_The moon is gone, the dawning brings A deeper dark with silver blent, Above the wells where, myriad, springs Light from the crimson orient; The elms are born, the shadows creep, Tremble and melt away--one sweep The great soft color floods and flows, Where under snow the roses sleep; The morn has turned the snow to rose._

LINES IN MEMORY OF EDMUND MORRIS

Dear Morris--here is your letter-- Can my answer reach you now? Fate has left me your debtor, You will remember how; For I went away to Nantucket, And you to the Isle of Orleans, And when I was dawdling and dreaming Over the ways and means Of answering, the power was denied me, Fate frowned and took her stand; I have your unanswered letter Here in my hand. This--in your famous scribble, It was ever a cryptic fist, Cuneiform or Chaldaic Meanings held in a mist.

Dear Morris, (now I'm inditing And poring over your script) I gather from the writing, The coin that you had flipt, Turned tails; and so you compel me To meet you at Touchwood Hills: Or, mayhap, you are trying to tell me The sum of a painter's ills: Is that Phimister Proctor Or something about a doctor? Well, nobody knows, but Eddie, Whatever it is I'm ready.

For our friendship was always fortunate In its greetings and adieux, Nothing flat or importunate, Nothing of the misuse That comes of the constant grinding Of one mind on another. So memory has nothing to smother, But only a few things captured On the wing, as it were, and enraptured. Yes, Morris, I am inditing-- Answering at last it seems, How can you read the writing In the vacancy of dreams?

I would have you look over my shoulder Ere the long, dark year is colder, And mark that as memory grows older, The brighter it pulses and gleams. And if I should try to render The tissues of fugitive splendour That fled down the wind of living, Will they read it some day in the future, And be conscious of an awareness In our old lives, and the bareness Of theirs, with the newest passions In the last fad of the fashions?

* * * * *

How often have we risen without daylight When the day star was hidden in mist, When the dragon-fly was heavy with dew and sleep, And viewed the miracle pre-eminent, matchless, The prelusive light that quickens the morning. O crystal dawn, how shall we distill your virginal freshness When you steal upon a land that man has not sullied with his intrusion, When the aboriginal shy dwellers in the broad solitudes Are asleep in their innumerable dens and night haunts Amid the dry ferns, in the tender nests Pressed into shape by the breasts of the Mother birds? How shall we simulate the thrill of announcement When lake after lake lingering in the starlight Turn their faces towards you, And are caressed with the salutation of colour?

How shall we transmit in tendril-like images, The tenuous tremor in the tissues of ether, Before the round of colour buds like the dome of a shrine, The preconscious moment when love has fluttered in the bosom, Before it begins to ache?

How often have we seen the even Melt into the liquidity of twilight, With passages of Titian splendour, Pellucid preludes, exquisitely tender, Where vanish and revive, thro' veils of the ashes of roses, The crystal forms the breathless sky discloses.

The new moon a slender thing, In a snood of virgin light, She seemed all shy on venturing Into the vast night.

Her own land and folk were afar, She must have gone astray, But the gods had given a silver star, To be with her on the way.

* * * * *

I can feel the wind on the prairie And see the bunch-grass wave, And the sunlights ripple and vary The hill with Crowfoot's grave, Where he "pitched off" for the last time In sight of the Blackfoot Crossing, Where in the sun for a pastime You marked the site of his tepee With a circle of stones. Old Napiw Gave you credit for that day. And well I recall the weirdness Of that evening at Qu'Appelle, In the wigwam with old Sakimay, The keen, acrid smell, As the kinnikinick was burning; The planets outside were turning, And the little splints of poplar Flared with a thin, gold flame. He showed us his painted robe Where in primitive pigments He had drawn his feats and his forays, And told us the legend Of the man without a name, The hated Blackfoot, How he lured the warriors, The young men, to the foray And they never returned. Only their ghosts Goaded by the Blackfoot Mounted on stallions: In the night time He drove the stallions Reeking into the camp; The women gasped and whispered, The children cowered and crept, And the old men shuddered Where they slept. When Sakimay looked forth He saw the Blackfoot, And the ghosts of the warriors, And the black stallions Covered by the night wind As by a mantle.

* * * * *

I remember well a day, When the sunlight had free play, When you worked in happy stress, While grave Ne-Pah-Pee-Ness Sat for his portrait there, In his beaded coat and his bare Head, with his mottled fan Of hawk's feathers, A Man! Ah Morris, those were the times When you sang your inconsequent rhymes Sprung from a careless fountain:

"_He met her on the mountain, He gave her a horn to blow, And the very last words he said to her Were, 'Go 'long, Eliza, go.'_"

Foolish,--but life was all, And under the skilful fingers Contours came at your call-- Art grows and time lingers;-- But now the song has a change Into something wistful and strange. And one asks with a touch of ruth What became of the youth And where did Eliza go? He met her on the mountain, He gave her a horn to blow, The horn was a silver whorl With a mouthpiece of pure pearl, And the mountain was all one glow, With gulfs of blue and summits of rosy snow. The cadence she blew on the silver horn Was the meaning of life in one phrase caught, And as soon as the magic notes were born, She repeated them once in an afterthought. They heard in the crystal passes, The cadence, calling, calling, And faint in the deep crevasses, The echoes falling, falling. They stood apart and wondered; Her lips with a wound were aquiver, His heart with a sword was sundered, For life was changed forever When he gave her the horn to blow: But a shadow arose from the valley, Desolate, slow and tender, It hid the herdsmen's chalet, Where it hung in the emerald meadow, (Was death driving the shadow?) It quenched the tranquil splendour Of the colour of life on the glow-peaks, Till at the end of the even, The last shell-tint on the snow-peaks Had passed away from the heaven. And yet, when it passed, victorious, The stars came out on the mountains, And the torrents gusty and glorious, Clamoured in a thousand fountains, And even far down in the valley, A light re-discovered the chalet. The scene that was veiled had a meaning, So deep that none might know; Was it here in the morn on the mountain, That he gave her the horn to blow?

* * * * *

Tears are the crushed essence of this world, The wine of life, and he who treads the press Is lofty with imperious disregard Of the burst grapes, the red tears and the murk. But nay! that is a thought of the old poets, Who sullied life with the passional bitterness Of their world-weary hearts. We of the sunrise, Joined in the breast of God, feel deep the power That urges all things onward, not to an end, But in an endless flow, mounting and mounting, Claiming not overmuch for human life, Sharing with our brothers of nerve and leaf The urgence of the one creative breath,-- All in the dim twilight--say of morning, Where the florescence of the light and dew Haloes and hallows with a crown adorning The brows of life with love; herein the clue, The love of life--yea, and the peerless love Of things not seen, that leads the least of things To cherish the green sprout, the hardening seed; Here leans all nature with vast Mother-love, Above the cradled future with a smile. Why are there tears for failure, or sighs for weakness, While life's rhythm beats on? Where is the rule To measure the distance we have circled and clomb? Catch up the sands of the sea and count and count The failures hidden in our sum of conquest. Persistence is the master of this life; The master of these little lives of ours; To the end--effort--even beyond the end.

* * * * *

Here, Morris, on the plains that we have loved, Think of the death of Akoose, fleet of foot, Who, in his prime, a herd of antelope From sunrise, without rest, a hundred miles Drove through rank prairie, loping like a wolf, Tired them and slew them, ere the sun went down. Akoose, in his old age, blind from the smoke Of tepees and the sharp snow light, alone With his great grandchildren, withered and spent, Crept in the warm sun along a rope Stretched for his guidance. Once when sharp autumn Made membranes of thin ice upon the sloughs, He caught a pony on a quick return Of prowess and, all his instincts cleared and quickened, He mounted, sensed the north and bore away To the Last Mountain Lake where in his youth He shot the sand-hill-cranes with his flint arrows. And for these hours in all the varied pomp Of pagan fancy and free dreams of foray And crude adventure, he ranged on entranced, Until the sun blazed level with the prairie, Then paused, faltered and slid from off his pony. In a little bluff of poplars, hid in the bracken, He lay down; the populace of leaves In the lithe poplars whispered together and trembled, Fluttered before a sunset of gold smoke, With interspaces, green as sea water, And calm as the deep water of the sea.

There Akoose lay, silent amid the bracken, Gathered at last with the Algonquin Chieftains. Then the tenebrous sunset was blown out, And all the smoky gold turned into cloud wrack. Akoose slept forever amid the poplars, Swathed by the wind from the far-off Red Deer Where dinosaurs sleep, clamped in their rocky tombs. Who shall count the time that lies between The sleep of Akoose and the dinosaurs? Innumerable time, that yet is like the breath Of the long wind that creeps upon the prairie And dies away with the shadows at sundown.

* * * * *

What we may think, who brood upon the theme, Is, when the old world, tired of spinning, has fallen Asleep, and all the forms, that carried the fire Of life, are cold upon her marble heart-- Like ashes on the altar--just as she stops, That something will escape of soul or essence,-- The sum of life, to kindle otherwhere: Just as the fruit of a high sunny garden, Grown mellow with autumnal sun and rain, Shrivelled with ripeness, splits to the rich heart, And looses a gold kernel to the mould, So the old world, hanging long in the sun, And deep enriched with effort and with love, Shall, in the motions of maturity, Wither and part, and the kernel of it all Escape, a lovely wraith of spirit, to latitudes Where the appearance, throated like a bird, Winged with fire and bodied all with passion, Shall flame with presage, not of tears, but joy.

THE END