Poems New and Old. John Freeman

thoughts are not my thoughts, and unto you

       The past, sole warmth for me, is void and cold.

       Another passion pours your spirit through,

       Another faith has leapt upon the fold

       And wrestles with the ancient faith. 'And lo!'

       Lightly men say, 'Even the gods come and go!'"

      He paused awhile in pacing and hung still,

       Amid the thickening shades a darker shade.

       Down the steep valley from the barren hill

       A herd of deer with antlered leader made

       Brief apparition. Mist brimmed up until

       Only the great round heights yet solid stayed—

       Then they too changed to spectral, and upon

       The changing mist wavered, and were gone. …

      "Standing to-day your father's grave beside,

       I knew my heart with his was covered there;

       O, more than flesh did in the cold earth hide—

       My past, his promise. There was none to care

       Save for the body of a prince that died

       As princes die; there was none whispered, 'Where

       Moves now among us his unburied part?

       What breast beats with the pulses of his heart?'

      "—Vain thoughts are these that but a dying man

       Searches among the dark caves of his mind!

       But as I stood, the very wind that ran

       Between the files breathed more than common wind,

       As though the gods of men when Time began,

       Fathers of fathers of old humankind,

       Startled, heard now the changeful future knock;

       And their lament it was from rock to rock

      "Tossed with the wind's long echo … O, speak not,

       Nor tell me with my loss I am so dazed,

       That my tongue speaks unfaithfully my thought;

       That you, you too, within his shadow raised,

       Stand bare now, wanting all you held or thought,

       By aimless love or prisoned grief amazed.

       Tell me not: let me out of silence speak,

       Or let me still my thoughts in silence break."

      And so both stood, and not a word to say,

       By silence overborne, until at last

       The young man breathed, "Look how the end of day

       Falls heavily, as though the earth were cast

       Into a shapeless soundless pit, where ray

       Of heavenly light never the verge has past.

       Yet will the late moon's light anon shine here,

       And then gray light, and then the sun's light clear.

      "Sire, 'twas my father died, and like night's pit

       Soundless and shapeless yawn my orphaned years.

       And yet I know morn comes and brings with it

       Old tasks again, and new joys, hopes and fears.

       Or sword or plough these fingers will find fit,

       And morrows end with other cries and tears,

       With women's arms and children's voices and

       The sacred gods blessing the new-sown land.

      "But look, upon your beard the dew is bright,

       Chill is the winter fall: let us go in."

       Then moved they slowly downward till a light

       Shining the door-post and thonged door between

       Showed the square Prince's House. Out of the night

       They passed the sudden rubied warmth within.

       Curled shadowy by the wall a servant slept:

       A sleepy hound from the same corner crept.

      Soon were they couched. The young man fell asleep;

       While the old Prince drowsing uneasily,

       Tossing on the crest of agitations deep,

       Dreamed waking, waking dreamed. Then memory

       The unseen hound, did from her corner creep

       Into his bosom and stirred him with her sigh

       Soundless. And he arose and answering pressed

       Her beloved head yet closer to his breast. …

      Happy those years returned when first he strode

       Beside his father's knees, or climbed and felt

       The warm strength of those arms, or singing rode

       High on his shoulders; or in winter pelt

       Of dread beasts wrapt, set as his father showed

       Snares in the frosty grass, and at dawn knelt

       Beside the snares, and shouting homeward tore,

       Winged with such pride as seldom manhood wore.

      —How many, many, many years ago!

       There was no older man now walked the earth.

       Had all those years sunk to a bitter glow,

       Like the fire lingering yet upon the hearth?

       Ah, he might warm his hands there still, and so

       Must warm his heart now in this wintry dearth,

       Till the reluming sunken fire should give

       Warmth to his ageing wits and bid him live.

      Even this house! It was his father told

       How in the days half lost in icy time

       Men first forsook their wormy caves and cold

       To build where the wind-footed cattle climb;

       And noise of labour broke the silence old

       By such unbroken since the sparkling prime

       Of the world's spring. And so the house arose,

       A builded cave, perpetual as the snows

      On the remotest summits of the range

       Hemming the north. Then house by house appeared

       'Neath valley-eaves, and change following on change

       Unnoted tamed earth's shaggy front. Men heard

       Strange voices syllabling with accents strange,

       By travellers breathed who, startled, paused and feared

       Seeing the smoke of habitations curled

       Above this hollow of an unrumoured world.

      Startled, they paused and spoke by doubtful sign,

       Answered by hesitating sign, until

       Moved one with aspect fearless and benign,

       And met one fearless, while all else hung still.

       And then was welcome, rest, and meat and wine

       And intercourse of uncouth word, as shrill

       Voice with deep voice was mingled. So they stayed

       And to astonished eyes strange arts betrayed.

      By them the oarage of the wind was taught,

       And how the quick tail steered the cockled boat.

       They netted fruitful streams, and smiling brought