A Reading of Life, and Other Poems | Page 9

the vans of doom did men pass in.
Heroic who came out; for
round them hung
A wavering phantom's red volcano tongue,
With
league-long lizard tail and fishy fin:
II.
Old Earth's original Dragon; there retired
To his last fastness;
overthrown by few.
Him a laborious thrust of roadway slew.
Then
man to play devorant straight was fired.
III.
More intimate became the forest fear
While pillared darkness hatched
malicious life
At either elbow, wolf or gnome or knife
And wary
slid the glance from ear to ear.
IV.
In chillness, like a clouded lantern-ray,
The forest's heart of fog on
mossed morass,
On purple pool and silky cotton-grass,
Revealed

where lured the swallower byway.
V.
Dead outlook, flattened back with hard rebound
Off walls of distance,
left each mounted height.
It seemed a giant hag-fiend, churning spite

Of humble human being, held the ground.
VI.
Through friendless wastes, through treacherous woodland, slow The
feet sustained by track of feet pursued
Pained steps, and found the
common brotherhood
By sign of Heaven indifferent, Nature foe.
VII.
Anon a mason's work amazed the sight,
And long-frocked men,
called Brothers, there abode.
They pointed up, bowed head, and dug
and sowed;
Whereof was shelter, loaf, and warm firelight.
VIII.
What words they taught were nails to scratch the head.
Benignant
works explained the chanting brood.
Their monastery lit black
solitude,
As one might think a star that heavenward led.
IX.
Uprose a fairer nest for weary feet,
Like some gold flower nightly
inward curled,
Where gentle maidens fled a roaring world,
Or
played with it, and had their white retreat.
X.
Into big books of metal clasps they pored.
They governed, even as
men; they welcomed lays.
The treasures women are whose aim is
praise,
Was shown in them: the Garden half restored.

XI.
A deluge billow scoured the land off seas,
With widened jaws, and
slaughter was its foam.
For food, for clothing, ambush, refuge, home,

The lesser savage offered bogs and trees.
XII.
Whence reverence round grey-haired story grew:
And inmost spots of
ancient horror shone
As temples under beams of trials bygone;
For
in them sang brave times with God in view.
XIII.
Till now trim homesteads bordered spaces green,
Like night's first
little stars through clearing showers.
Was rumoured how a castle's
falcon towers
The wilderness commanded with fierce mien.
XIV.
Therein a serious Baron stuck his lance;
For minstrel songs a
beauteous Dame would pout.
Gay knights and sombre, felon or
devout,
Pricked onward, bound for their unsung romance.
XV.
It might be that two errant lords across
The block of each came edged,
and at sharp cry
They charged forthwith, the better man to try.
One
rode his way, one couched on quiet moss.
XVI.
Perchance a lady sweet, whose lord lay slain,
The robbers into
gruesome durance drew.
Swift should her hero come, like lightning's
blue!
She prayed for him, as crackling drought for rain.
XVII.

As we, that ere the worst her hero haps,
Of Angels guided, nigh that
loathly den:
A toady cave beside an ague fen,
Where long forlorn
the lone dog whines and yaps.
XVIII.
By daylight now the forest fear could read
Itself, and at new wonders
chuckling went.
Straight for the roebuck's neck the bowman spent

A dart that laughed at distance and at speed.
XIX.
Right loud the bugle's hallali elate
Rang forth of merry dingles round
the tors;
And deftest hand was he from foreign wars,
But soon he
hailed the home-bred yeoman mate.
XX.
Before the blackbird pecked the turf they woke;
At dawn the deer's
wet nostrils blew their last.
To forest, haunt of runs and prime repast,

With paying blows, the yokel strained his yoke.
XXI.
The city urchin mooned on forest air,
On grassy sweeps and flying
arrows, thick
As swallows o'er smooth streams, and sighed him sick

For thinking that his dearer home was there.
XXII.
Familiar, still unseized, the forest sprang
An old-world echo, like no
mortal thing.
The hunter's horn might wind a jocund ring,
But held
in ear it had a chilly clang.
XXIII.
Some shadow lurked aloof of ancient time;
Some warning haunted

any sound prolonged,
As though the leagues of woodland held them
wronged
To hear an axe and see a township climb.
XXIV.
The forest's erewhile emperor at eve
Had voice when lowered
heavens drummed for gales.
At midnight a small people danced the
dales,
So thin that they might dwindle through a sieve
XXV.
Ringed mushrooms told of them, and in their throats,
Old wives that
gathered herbs and knew too much.
The pensioned forester beside his
crutch,
Struck showers from embers at those bodeful notes.
XXVI.
Came then the one, all ear, all eye, all heart;
Devourer, and insensibly
devoured;
In whom the city over forest flowered,
The forest
wreathed the city's drama-mart.
XXVII.
There found he in new form that Dragon old,
From tangled solitudes
expelled; and taught
How blindly each its antidote besought;
For
either's breath the needs of either told.
XXVIII.
Now deep in woods, with song no sermon's drone,
He showed what
charm the human concourse works:
Amid the press of men, what
virtue lurks
Where bubble sacred wells of wildness lone.
XXIX.
Our conquest these: if haply we retain
The reverence that ne'er will

overrun
Due boundaries of realms