I crossed a moor, with a name of its own

And a certain use in the world no doubt, Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone

'Mid the blank miles round about:

For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest.

673

THE PATRIOT

An Old Story

It was roses, roses, all the way,

With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.

The air broke into a mist with bells,

The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels—
But give me your sun from yonder skies!"
They had answered, "And afterward, what else?"

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun

To give it my loving friends to keep!
Naught man could do, have I left undone:
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.

There's nobody on the house-tops now—

Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,

At the Shambles' Gate—or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.

674

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,

A rope cuts both my wrists behind;

And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

Thus I entered, and thus I go!

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
Me?"—God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.

Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes

Each in its tether

Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,

Cared-for till cock-crow:

Look out if yonder be not day again

Rimming the rock-row!

That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,

Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,

Chafes in the censer.

Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop:

Seek we sepulture

On a tall mountain, citied to the top,

Crowded with culture!

All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;

Clouds overcome it;

No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's

Circling its summit.

Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights;

Wait ye the warning?

Our low life was the level's and the night's;

He's for the morning.

Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!

This is our master, famous, calm and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.

Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,

Safe from the weather!

He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,

Singing together,

He was a man born with thy face and throat,
Lyric Apollo!

Long he lived nameless: how should Spring take

note

Winter would follow?

Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,

Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!
My dance is finished?"

No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountainside,

Make for the city!)

He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride Over men's pity;

Left play for work, and grappled with the world Bent on escaping:

"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?

Show me their shaping,

Theirs who most studied man, the bard and

sage,—

Give!"—So, he gowned him,

Straight got by heart that book to its last page: Learned, we found him.

Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, Accents uncertain:

"Time to taste life," another would have said,

"Up with the curtain!"

This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? Patience a moment!

Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Still there's the comment.

Let me know all! Prate not of most or least, Painful or easy!

Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,

Ay, nor feel queasy."

Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,

When he had learned it,

When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.

Image the whole, then execute the parts—
Fancy the fabric

Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,

Ere mortar dab brick!

(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place

Gaping before us.)

Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace

(Hearten our chorus!)

That before living he'd learn how to live—
No end to learning:

Earn the means first—God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.

Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes: Live now or never!"

He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!

Man has Forever."

Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head: Calculus racked him:

Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:

Tussis attacked him.

"Now, master, take a little rest!"—not he!

(Caution redoubled,

Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)
Not a whit troubled,

Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon

He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.

Oh, if we draw a circle premature,

Heedless of far gain,

Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure

Bad is our bargain!

Was it not great? did not he throw on God,

(He loves the burthen)—

God's task to make the heavenly period

Perfect the earthen?

Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant?

He would not discount life, as fools do here,
Paid by instalment.

He ventured neck or nothing—heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:

"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes!

Hence with life's pale lure!"

That low man seeks a little thing to do,

Sees it and does it:

This high man, with a great thing to pursue,

Dies ere he knows it.

That low man goes on adding one to one,

His hundred's soon hit:

This high man, aiming at a million,

Misses an unit.

That, has the world here should he need the

next,

Let the world mind him!

This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find him.

So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar;

Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were

rife:

While he could stammer

He settled Hoti's business—let it be!—

Properly based Oun—

Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,