Then first upon earth’s wave the silver share
  Floated, by the teamed oxen drawn; then first
Were seed-time rites, and harvest rites when bare
  The cropped fields lay, and gathered tumult—­nurst
Long in the breasts of men that laboured there—­
  Now in the broad ease of fulfilment burst;
And when the winter tasks failed in days chill,
Weaving of bright-hued yarn, and chattering shrill;

And the loved tones of music sounded sweet
  Unwonted, when the new-stopped pipe was heard
Rising and falling, and the falling feet
  Of sudden dancers.  And old men were stirred
With old men’s memories of ancient heat
  When youth sang in their bosoms like a bird.... 
Sweet that divine musician, Memory,
Fingering her many-reeded melody.

Then as he stared into the wasting glow
  And watched the fire faint in the whitening wood,
Came starker shadows moving vast and slow,
  And echoes of wild strife and smell of blood,
Twitching of slain men, cries of parting woe,
  Bruised bodies ghastly in the mountain flood;
Burials and burnings, triumph with terrors blent,
And widowed languors and night-long lament.

Like seeds long buried, these dead memories
  Upthrust in their new green and spread to flower: 
An eager child against his father’s knees
  Leaning, he had listened many an evening hour. 
Now these remote reworded histories
  Entangled with his own renewed their power,
Breathing an antique virtue through his mind,
As through dense yew boughs breathes the undying wind.

Sighing, he rose up softly.  On the wall
  A dark shape shambled aimless to and fro;
Head bent, eyes inward-seeing, rugged, tall,
  Himself a shadow moved with musings slow
Amid his cumbered past, and heard sweet call
  Of mother voice, and mother folk, and flow
Of gentle and proud speech and tender laughter,
Story and song, fault and forgiveness after;

And a voice graver, gentler than a man
  Might hear from any but a woman beloved,
Stilling and awakening the blood that ran
  Like ocean tide, as neared she or removed ... 
Faded that music.  Then a voice began
  Paining within his heart, yet unreproved;
For dear the anguish is that steals upon
A father’s spirit lamenting his lost son.

—­The latest born and latest lost of those
  Of his strong and her gentle being born. 
By earthquake, pestilence, by human foes
  Long were they dead; and yet not all forlorn
He grieved, for at his side the youngest rose
  Bright as a willow gilded by dewy morn.... 
Felled now the tree, silent that music, still
The motion that did all the vale-air fill.

Once more they bore the body from the hunt
  Where he alone had died.  Once more he heard
The wail and sigh, and saw once more their front
  Of drooping grief; once more the wailing stirred
Old hounds to baying wilder than was wont;
  Fell once more like slow, sullen rain each word
Reluctant, telling to his senses strayed,
How while the gods drowsed and men hung afraid.