Page:Poems Dorr.djvu/355

Who Nature's inmost secret knows?"
And, pointing to the eternal snows,
Each man replied, with wagging head,
"Up yonder, somewhere, it is said."

At length one day, as sank the sun,
He reached a low hut, dark and dun,
And, entering unbidden, found
An old man stretched upon the ground:
A white-haired, venerable man,
Whose eyes had hardly light to scan
The face that, blanched with awful fear,
Bent down, his failing breath to hear.
"Pax vobiscum," he murmured low,
"Shrive me, O brother, ere I go!"

"No priest am I," cried Valdemar.
"Alas! alas! I came from far
To learn thy secret of the clay—
Speak to me, sire, while yet you may!"
But while he wet the parchèd lips,
The dull eyes closed in death's eclipse;
And the old seer in silence lay,
Himself a thing of pallid clay,
With all his secrets closely hid
As Ramses' in the pyramid.

Long time within that lonely place
Valdemar lived, but found no trace
In learned book or parchment scroll
(The ink scarce dry upon the roll)
Of aught the stars had taught to him.
Within the wide horizon's rim,
Nor earth, nor sky, nor winds at play,
Knew the lost secret of the clay.