Volume I Part 29 (1/2)

Smiling so slow, he seemed to see Her smile the last thing, gloriously Beyond her, far as memory.

Then he looked round: he was alone.

He lay before the breaking sun, As Jacob at the Bethel stone.

And thought's entangled skein being wound, He knew the moorland of his swound, And the pale pools that smeared the ground;

The far wood-pines like offing s.h.i.+ps; The fourth pool's yew anear him drips, _World's cruelty_ attaints his lips,

And still he tastes it, bitter still; Through all that glorious possible He had the sight of present ill.

Yet rising calmly up and slowly With such a cheer as scorneth folly, A mild delightsome melancholy,

He journeyed homeward through the wood And prayed along the solitude Betwixt the pines, ”O G.o.d, my G.o.d!”

The golden morning's open flowings Did sway the trees to murmurous bowings, In metric chant of blessed poems.

And pa.s.sing homeward through the wood, He prayed along the solitude, ”THOU, Poet-G.o.d, art great and good!

”And though we must have, and have had Right reason to be earthly sad, THOU, Poet-G.o.d, art great and glad!”

CONCLUSION.

Life treads on life, and heart on heart; We press too close in church and mart To keep a dream or grave apart:

And I was 'ware of walking down That same green forest where had gone The poet-pilgrim. One by one

I traced his footsteps. From the east A red and tender radiance pressed Through the near trees, until I guessed

The sun behind shone full and round; While up the leafiness profound A wind scarce old enough for sound

Stood ready to blow on me when I turned that way, and now and then The birds sang and brake off again

To shake their pretty feathers dry Of the dew sliding droppingly From the leaf-edges and apply

Back to their song: 'twixt dew and bird So sweet a silence ministered, G.o.d seemed to use it for a word,

Yet morning souls did leap and run In all things, as the least had won A joyous insight of the sun,

And no one looking round the wood Could help confessing as he stood, _This Poet-G.o.d is glad and good._

But hark! a distant sound that grows, A heaving, sinking of the boughs, A rustling murmur, not of those,

A breezy noise which is not breeze!

And white-clad children by degrees Steal out in troops among the trees,

Fair little children morning-bright, With faces grave yet soft to sight, Expressive of restrained delight.

Some plucked the palm-boughs within reach, And others leapt up high to catch The upper boughs and shake from each