Part 7

Three times I have cast my words to the wind, And thrice to the climbing sea; If ye drift or dream with the clouds or foam Ye must drift again home, ye must drift again home--

Wraith, ye are free, ye are free; Ghost, ye are free, ye are free!

Are the coasts of death so fair, so fair? But I wait ye here on the shore! It is I that ye hear in the calling wind-- I have stared through the dark till my soul is blind! O lover of mine, ye swore, Lover of mine, ye swore!

HUNTED

Oh, why do they hunt so hard, so hard, who have no need of food? Do they hunt for sport, do they hunt for hate, do they hunt for the lust of blood?

. . . . . .

If I were a god I would get me a spear, I would get me horse and dog, And merrily, merrily I would ride through covert and brake and bog,

With hound and horn and laughter loud, over the hills and away-- For there is no sport like that of a god with a man that stands at bay!

Ho! but the morning is fresh and fair, and oh! but the sun is bright, And yonder the quarry breaks from the brush and heads for the hills in flight;

A minute's law for the harried thing--then follow him, follow him fast, With the bellow of dogs and the beat of hoofs and the mellow bugle's blast.

. . . . . .

_Hillo! Halloo! they have marked a man! there is sport in the world to-day-- And a clamor swells from the heart of the wood that tells of a soul at bay!

A DREAM CHILD

WHERE tides of tossed wistaria bloom Foam up in purple turbulence, Where twining boughs have built a room And wing'd winds pause to garner scents And scattered sunlight flecks the gloom, She broods in pensive indolence.

What is the thought that holds her thrall, That dims her sight with unshed tears? What songs of sorrow droop and fall In broken music for her ears? What voices thrill her and recall The poignant joy of happier years?

She dreams 'tis not the winds which pass That whisper through the shaken vine; Whose footstep stirs the rustling grass None else that listened might divine; She sees her child that never was Look up with longing in his eyne.

Unkissed, his lifted forehead gains A grace not earthly, but more rare-- For since her heart but only feigns, Wherefore should love not feign him fair? Put blood of roses in his veins, Weave yellow sunshines for his hair?

All ghosts of little children dead That wander wistful, uncaressed, Their seeking lips by love unfed, She fain would cradle on her breast For his sweet sake whose lonely head Has never known that tender rest.

And thus she sits, and thus she broods, Where drifted blossoms freak the grass; The winds that move across her moods Pulse with low whispers as they pass, And in their eerier interludes She hears a voice that never was.

ACROSS THE NIGHT

MUCH listening through the silences, Much staring through the night, And lo! the dumb blind distances Are bridged with speech and sight!

Magician Thought, informed of Love, Hath fixed her on the air-- Oh, Love and I laughed down the fates And clasped her, here as there!

Across the eerie silences She came in headlong flight, She stormed the serried distances, She trampled space and night!

Oh, foolish scientists might give This miracle a name-- But Love and I care but to know That when we called she came.

And since I find the distances Subservient to my thought, And of the sentient silences More vital speech have wrought,

Then she and I will mock Death's self, For all his vaunted might-- There are no gulfs we dare not leap, As she leapt through the night!

SEA CHANGES

MORNING