Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/119

With longing toward those mighty solitudes
Arisen, where far he swept the breaking West.
O whence refreshed from unknown springs divine
The cry, the dark desire, the need to go
Whither the wild heart will? 'T was such a morn
As when in frosty autumns of the North
The honking geese cross the untraveled vague,
Unseen aloft, or heaven-high wedgewise move,
Wild birds in the void air; forward he saw
Where the wide world, westering with dune and butte
Sky-bordering, lifted on the rolling plains
A harsh, scant herbage of dull silvery leaf,
Flooring the solemn dawn. "The herb of grace"—
He heard the old man speak—"grows everywhere;
But sweetest, on the desert border found
And crushed, gives up its fragrant virtue here."
Then the awed Roamer swift bethought himself,
Replying, "Such tranquillity is thine,
So saintly bends toward earth thy age serene,
Scarce mortal thou, though mortal sounds thy voice."
"Mortal—immortal—they are veiling names
Of what is timeless," that old man returned;
"The mystic hours, whose revolutions flash

Shadow and sun upon the ways of men,