THE IDIOT
Eighty years beside Loch Goil,
Hewing timber, turning soil,
Time had done him ease in toil.
Vast seasons rolling grandly by
Had stamped him with Eternity.
Man and mountain stood star-high.
He walked a slow deliberate pace,
And, like the world that walks in space,
Seemed less a being than a place.
The man was moulded from the hill,
A portion of that moveless Will
That labouring, is for ever still.
His mien, his gait, his mindless gaze
Held all the soul of me in haze,
As fox and serpent hold their prey's.
I spoke. Abruptly he began
A murmuring trail of words that ran
In ruin through the heart of Man.—
(Such words the wise dread Spirit spake
In the desert, saying, "Make,
Son of Man, bread for Man's sake.")
—A rhythmic, low, unbroken sound,
Nearly wordless, like profound
Music breaking from the ground.
Nature here herself had not
