Poems by the Way | Page 8

seed of midwinter, unheeded, unperished,
Like the
autumn-sown wheat 'neath the snow lying green,
Like the love that
o'ertook us, unawares and uncherished,
Like the babe 'neath thy
girdle that groweth unseen;
So the hope of the people now buddeth and groweth,
Rest fadeth
before it, and blindness and fear;
It biddeth us learn all the wisdom it
knoweth;
It hath found us and held us, and biddeth us hear:
For it beareth the message: "Rise up on the morrow
And go on your
ways toward the doubt and the strife;
Join hope to our hope and blend
sorrow with sorrow,
And seek for men's love in the short days of
life."
But lo, the old inn, and the lights, and the fire,
And the fiddler's old

tune and the shuffling of feet;
Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and
desire,
And to-morrow's uprising to deeds shall be sweet.
A DEATH SONG.
What cometh here from west to east awending?
And who are these,
the marchers stern and slow?
We bear the message that the rich are
sending
Aback to those who bade them wake and know.
Not one,
not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would
dusk the day.
We asked them for a life of toilsome earning,
They bade us bide their
leisure for our bread;
We craved to speak to tell our woeful learning:

We come back speechless, bearing back our dead.
Not one, not one,
nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the
day.
They will not learn; they have no ears to hearken.
They turn their
faces from the eyes of fate;
Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that
darken.
But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate.
Not one, not
one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk
the day.
Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison;
Amidst the storm he
won a prisoner's rest;
But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen
Brings
us our day of work to win the best.
Not one, not one, nor thousands
must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.
ICELAND FIRST SEEN
Lo from our loitering ship
a new land at last to be seen;
Toothed
rocks down the side of the firth
on the east guard a weary wide lea,

And black slope the hill-sides above,
striped adown with their
desolate green:
And a peak rises up on the west
from the meeting of
cloud and of sea,
Foursquare from base unto point
like the building

of Gods that have been,
The last of that waste of the mountains
all
cloud-wreathed and snow-flecked and grey,
And bright with the dawn
that began
just now at the ending of day.
Ah! what came we forth for to see
that our hearts are so hot with
desire?
Is it enough for our rest,
the sight of this desolate strand,

And the mountain-waste voiceless as death
but for winds that may
sleep not nor tire?
Why do we long to wend forth
through the
length and breadth of a land,
Dreadful with grinding of ice,
and
record of scarce hidden fire,
But that there 'mid the grey grassy dales

sore scarred by the ruining streams
Lives the tale of the Northland
of old
and the undying glory of dreams?
O land, as some cave by the sea
where the treasures of old have been
laid,
The sword it may be of a king
whose name was the turning of
fight:
Or the staff of some wise of the world
that many things made
and unmade.
Or the ring of a woman maybe
whose woe is grown
wealth and delight.
No wheat and no wine grows above it,
no
orchard for blossom and shade;
The few ships that sail by its
blackness
but deem it the mouth of a grave;
Yet sure when the
world shall awaken,
this too shall be mighty to save.
Or rather, O land, if a marvel
it seemeth that men ever sought
Thy
wastes for a field and a garden
fulfilled of all wonder and doubt,

And feasted amidst of the winter
when the light of the year had been
fought,
Whose plunder all gathered together
was little to babble
about;
Cry aloud from thy wastes, O thou land,
"Not for this nor for
that was I wrought.

Amid waning of realms and of riches
and death
of things worshipped and sure,
I abide here the spouse of a God,

and I made and I make and endure."
O Queen of the grief without knowledge,
of the courage that may not
avail,
Of the longing that may not attain,
of the love that shall never
forget,
More joy than the gladness of laughter
thy voice hath amidst

of its wail:
More hope than of pleasure fulfilled
amidst of thy
blindness is set;
More glorious than gaining of all
thine unfaltering
hand that shall fail:
For what is the mark on thy brow
but the brand
that thy Brynhild doth bear?
Lone once, and loved and undone
by a
love that no ages outwear.
Ah! when thy Balder comes back,
and bears from the heart of the Sun

Peace and the healing of pain,
and the wisdom that waiteth no
more;
And the lilies are laid on thy brow
'mid