IX

And in the secret thicket where Thy light
Is dimmed with starry shining of the night,
Hearing these mingled airs from every wood
Thou’lt smile serenely down, murmuring, “’Tis good.” 
While Angels in the thicket borders curled
Amid the farthest gold beams of Thy hair,
Seeing on one drooped beam this distant world
Floating illumined, cry, “Bright Lord, how fair!”

OUT OF THE EAST

When man first walked upright and soberly
  Reflecting as he paced to and fro,
And no more swinging from wide tree to tree,
  Or sheltered by vast boles from sheltered foe,
Or crouched within some deep cave by the sea
  Stared at the noisy waste of water’s woe
Where the earth ended, and far lightning died
Splintered upon the rigid tideless tide;

When man above Time’s cloud lifted his head
  And speech knew, and the company of speech,
And from his alien presence wild beasts fled
  And birds flew wary from his arrow’s reach,
And cattle trampling the long meadow weed
  Did sentry in the wind’s path set; when each
Horn, hoof, claw, sting and sinew against man
Was turned, and the old enmity began;

When, following, beneath the hand of kings
  Moved men their parting ways, and some passed on
To forest refuge, some by dark-browed springs,
  And some to high remoter pastures won,
And some o’er yellow deserts spread their wings,
  Thinning with time and thirst and so were gone
Forgotten; when between each wandered host
The seldom travellers faltered and were lost;—­

In those old days, upon the soft dew’d sward
  That held its green between the thicket’s cloud,
Walked two men musing ere the wide moon poured
  Her full-girthed weightless flood.  And one was bowed
With years past knowledge, and his face was scored
  Where light or deep had every long year ploughed—­
Pain, labour, present peril, distant dread
Scored in his brow and bending his shagged head.

Palsy his frame shook as a harsh wind shakes
  Complaining reeds fringing a frozen river;
His eye the aspect had of frozen lakes
  Whereunder the foiled waters swirl and quiver;
His voice the deep note that the north wind takes
  Drawn through bare beechwoods where forlorn birds shiver—­
Deep and unfaltering.  A younger man
Listened, while warmer currents in him ran.

“Was not my son even as myself to me,
  As you to him showed his own life again? 
Now he is dead, and all I looked to see
  In him removes to you—­less near and plain,
Confused with other blood; and what will be
  I groping cannot tell, and grope in vain. 
For men have turned to other ways than mine: 
Yourself are less fulfilment than a sign,