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