Rhymes Of A Rolling Stone Part 5

Oh, we'll be strong! the way is long That never has a turning; The hill is high, but there's the sky, And how the West is burning!

And if through chance of circ.u.mstance We have to go bare-foot, sir, We'll not repine -- a friend of mine Has got no feet to boot, sir.

This Happiness a habit is, And Life is what we make it: See! there's the trail to Sunnydale!

Up, friend! and let us take it.

The Blind and the Dead

She lay like a saint on her copper couch; Like an angel asleep she lay, In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch Past the Dead and sneak away.

Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze, Who begged in the streets for bread.

Each day he had come for a year of days, And groped his way to the Dead.

"What's the Devil's Harvest to-day?" he cried; "A wanton with eyes of blue!

I've known too many a such," he sighed; "Maybe I know this . . . mon Dieu!"

He raised the head of the heedless Dead; He fingered the frozen face. . . .

Then a deathly spell on the watchers fell -- G.o.d! it was still, that place!

He raised the head of the careless Dead; He fumbled a vagrant curl; And then with his sightless smile he said: "It's only my little girl."

"Dear, my dear, did they hurt you so!

Come to your daddy's heart. . . ."

Aye, and he held so tight, you know, They were hard to force apart.

No! Paris isn't always gay; And the morgue has its stories too: You are a writer of tales, you say -- Then there is a tale for you.

The Atavist

What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world, Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen?

Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled, You that's a lord's own son, Tom Thorne -- what does your madness mean?

Go home, go home to your clubs, Tom Thorne! home to your evening dress!

Home to your place of power and pride, and the feast that waits for you!

Why do you linger all alone in the splendid emptiness, Scouring the Land of the Little Sticks on the trail of the caribou?

Why did you fall off the Earth, Tom Thorne, out of our social ken?

What did your deep d.a.m.nation prove? What was your dark despair?

Oh with the width of a world between, and years to the count of ten, If they cut out your heart to-night, Tom Thorne, _HER_ name would be graven there!

And you fled afar for the thing called Peace, and you thought you would find it here, In the purple tundras vastly spread, and the mountains whitely piled; It's a weary quest and a dreary quest, but I think that the end is near; For they say that the Lord has hidden it in the secret heart of the Wild.

And you know that heart as few men know, and your eyes are fey and deep, With a "something lost" come welling back from the raw, red dawn of life: With woe and pain have you greatly lain, till out of abysmal sleep The soul of the Stone Age leaps in you, alert for the ancient strife.

And if you came to our feast again, with its pomp and glee and glow, I think you would sit stone-still, Tom Thorne, and see in a daze of dream, A mad sun goading to frenzied flame the glittering gems of the snow, And a monster musk-ox bulking black against the blood-red gleam.

I think you would see berg-battling sh.o.r.es, and stammer and halt and stare, With a sudden sense of the frozen void, serene and vast and still; And the aching gleam and the hush of dream, and the track of a great white bear, And the primal l.u.s.t that surged in you as you sprang to make your kill.

I think you would hear the bull-moose call, and the glutted river roar; And spy the hosts of the caribou shadow the shining plain; And feel the pulse of the Silences, and stand elate once more On the verge of the yawning vast.i.tudes that call to you in vain.

For I think you are one with the stars and the sun, and the wind and the wave and the dew; And the peaks untrod that yearn to G.o.d, and the valleys undefiled; Men soar with wings, and they bridle kings, but what is it all to you, Wise in the ways of the wilderness, and strong with the strength of the Wild?

You have spent your life, you have waged your strife where never we play a part; You have held the throne of the Great Unknown, you have ruled a kingdom vast: . . . . .

_BUT TO-NIGHT THERE'S A STRANGE, NEW TRAIL FOR YOU, AND YOU GO, O WEARY HEART!

TO THE PEACE AND REST OF THE GREAT UNGUESSED . . .

AT LAST, TOM THORNE, AT LAST._

The Sceptic

My Father Christmas pa.s.sed away When I was barely seven.

At twenty-one, alack-a-day, I lost my hope of heaven.

Yet not in either lies the curse: The h.e.l.l of it's because I don't know which loss hurt the worse -- My G.o.d or Santa Claus.

The Rover

I

Oh, how good it is to be Foot-loose and heart-free!

Just my dog and pipe and I, underneath the vast sky; Trail to try and goal to win, white road and cool inn; Fields to lure a lad afar, clear spring and still star; Lilting feet that never tire, green dingle, f.a.got fire; None to hurry, none to hold, heather hill and hushed fold; Nature like a picture book, laughing leaf and bright brook; Every day a jewel bright, set serenely in the night; Every night a holy shrine, radiant for a day divine.

Weathered cheek and kindly eye, let the wanderer go by.

Woman-love and wistful heart, let the gipsy one depart.

For the farness and the road are his glory and his goad.

Oh, the lilt of youth and Spring! Eyes laugh and lips sing.

Yea, but it is good to be Foot-loose and heart-free!

II