Behind the Arras | Page 5

alone
And fronted failure and housed
with none.
"What youth was that, when the world was green,
In the lovely
mythus Greek and clean,
"Was doomed with his flowery kin to bide,
A blown white star by the
river side,
"And no more follow the sun, foot free,
Too long enamoured of one
like thee?
"Shall God who abides in the patient flower,
The painted dust
sustained by his power,
"Refuse to the wing of the dragonfly
His sanction over the open
sky,--
"A frail detached and wandering thing
Torn loose from the blossomy
life of spring?
"And this is man, the myriad one,
Dust's flower and time's
ephemeron.

"And I who have followed the wander-list
For a glimpse of beauty, a
wraith in the mist,
"Shall be spilt at last and return to peace,
As dust which the hands of
the wind release.
"This is my solace and my reward,
Who have drained life's dregs
from a broken shard."
Wise and grave was the water face,
A youth grown man in a little
space;
While the wayworn face by the river side
Grew gentler-lipped and
shadowy-eyed;
For he heard like a sea-horn summoning him
That sound from the
world's end vast and dim,
Where the river went wandering out so far
Through a gate in the
mountain left ajar,
The sea birds love and the land birds flee,
The large bleak voice of
the burly sea.
[Illustration]
_The Cruise of the Galleon_
This laboring vast, Tellurian Galleon,
Riding at anchor off the orient
sun,
Had broken its cable, and stood out to space.
FRANCIS THOMPSON.
Galleon, ahoy, ahoy!
Old earth riding off the sun,
And straining at
your cable as you ride
On the tide,
Battered laboring and vast,
In
the blast
Of the hurricane that blows between the worlds,
Ahoy!

'Morning, shipmates! 'Drift and chartless?
Laded deep and rolling
hard?
Never guessed, outworn and heartless,
There was land so
close aboard?
Ice on every shroud and eyelet,
Rocking in the windy trough?
No
more panic; Man's your pilot;
Turns the flood, and we are off!
At the story of disaster,
From the continents of sleep,
I am come to
be your master
And put out into the deep.
What tide current struck you hither,
Beating up the storm of years?

Where are those who stood to weather
These uncharted gulfs of
tears?
Did your fellows all drive under
In the maelstrom of the sun,
While
you only, for a wonder,
Rode the wash you could not shun?
We'll crowd sail across the sea-line,--
Clear this harbor, reef and buoy,

Bowling down an open bee-line
For the latitudes of joy;
Till beyond the zones of sorrow,
Past griefs haven in the night,

Some large simpler world shall morrow
This pale region's northern
light.
Not a fear but all the sea-room,
Wherein time is but a bay,
Yet shall
sparkle for our lee-room
In the vast Altrurian day.
And the dauntless seaworn spirit
Shall awake to know there are

What dominions to inherit,
Anchored off another star!
[Illustration]
_A Song Before Sailing_
"Cras ingens iterabimus aequor."

Wind of the dead men's feet,
Blow down the empty street
Of this
old city by the sea
With news for me!
Blow me beyond the grime
And pestilence of time!
I am too sick at
heart to war
With failure any more.
Thy chill is in my bones;
The moonlight on the stones
Is pale, and
palpable, and cold;
I am as one grown old.
I call from room to room
Through the deserted gloom;
The echoes
are all words I know,
Lost in some long ago.
I prowl from door to door,
And find no comrade more.
The wolfish
fear that children feel
Is snuffing at my heel.
I hear the hollow sound
Of a great ship coming round,
The thunder
of tackle and the tread
Of sailors overhead.
That stormy-blown hulloo
Has orders for me, too.
I see thee, hand
at mouth, and hark,
My captain of the dark.
O wind of the great East,
By whom we are released
From this
strange dusty port to sail
Beyond our fellows' hail,
Under the stars that keep
The entry of the deep,
Thy somber voice
brings up the sea's
Forgotten melodies;
And I have no more need
Of bread, or wine, or creed,
Bound for the
colonies of time
Beyond the farthest prime.
Wind of the dead men's feet,
Blow through the empty street!
The
last adventurer am I,
Then, world, good-by!
_In the Wings_
The play is Life; and this round earth,
The narrow stage whereon


We act before an audience
Of actors dead and gone.
There is a figure in the wings
That never goes away,
And though I
cannot see his face,
I shudder while I play.
His shadow looms behind me here,
Or capers at my side;
And when
I mouth my lines in dread,
Those scornful lips deride.
Sometimes a hooting laugh breaks out,
And startles me alone;

While all my fellows, wondering
At my stage-fright, play on.
I fear that when my Exit comes,
I shall encounter there,
Stronger
than fate, or time, or love,
And sterner than despair,
The Final Critic of the craft,
As stage tradition tells;
And
yet--perhaps 'twill only be
The jester with his bells.
[Illustration]
_The Red Wolf_
With the fall of the leaf comes the wolf, wolf, wolf,
The old red wolf
at my door.
And my hateful