Chapter 4

By the Nile, the sacred river, I can see the captive hordes Strain beneath the lash and quiver At the long papyrus cords, While in granite rapt and solemn, Rising over roof and column, Amen-hotep dreams, or Ramses, Lord of Lords.

I can hear the trumpets waken For a victory old and far-- Carchemish or Kadesh taken-- I can see the conqueror's car Bearing down some Hittite valley, Where the bowmen break and sally, Sargina or Esarhaddon, Grim with war!

From the mountain streams that sweeten Indus, to the Spanish foam, I can feel the broad earth beaten By the serried tramp of Rome; Through whatever foes environ Onward with the might of iron-- Veni, vidi; veni, vici-- Crashing home!

I can see the kings grow pallid With astonished fear and hate, As the hosts of Amr or Khaled On their cities fall like fate; Like the heat-wind from its prison In the desert burst and risen-- La ilàha illah 'llàhu-- God is great!

I can hear the iron rattle, I can see the arrows sting In some far-off northern battle, Where the long swords sweep and swing; I can hear the scalds declaiming, I can see their eyeballs flaming, Gathered in a frenzied circle Round the king.

I can hear the horn of Uri Roaring in the hills enorm; Kindled at its brazen fury, I can see the clansmen form; In the dawn in misty masses, Pouring from the silent passes Over Granson or Morgarten Like the storm.

On the lurid anvil ringing To some slow fantastic plan, I can hear the sword-smith singing In the heart of old Japan-- Till the cunning blade grows tragic With his malice and his magic-- Tenka tairan! Tenka tairan! War to man!

Where a northern river charges By a wild and moonlit glade, From the murky forest marges, Round a broken palisade, I can see the red men leaping, See the sword of Daulac sweeping, And the ghostly forms of heroes Fall and fade.

I can feel the modern thunder Of the cannon beat and blaze, When the lines of men go under On your proudest battle-days; Through the roar I hear the lifting Of the bloody chorus drifting Round the burning mill at Valmy-- Marseillaise!

I can see the ocean rippled With the driving shot like rain, While the hulls are crushed and crippled, And the guns are piled with slain; O'er the blackened broad sea-meadow Drifts a tall and titan shadow, And the cannon of Trafalgar Startle Spain.

Still the tides of fight are booming, And the barren blood is spilt; Still the banners are up-looming, And the hands are on the hilt; But the old world waxes wiser, From behind the bolted visor It descries at last the horror And the guilt.

Yet the eyes are dim, nor wholly Open to the golden gleam, And the brute surrenders slowly To the godhead and the dream. From his cage of bar and girder, Still at moments mad with murder, Leaps the tiger, and his demon Rules supreme.

One more war with fire and famine Gathers--I can hear its cries-- And the years of might and Mammon Perish in a world's demise; When the strength of man is shattered, And the powers of earth are scattered, From beneath the ghastly ruin Peace shall rise!

THE WOODCUTTER'S HUT

Far up in the wild and wintery hills in the heart of the cliff-broken woods, Where the mounded drifts lie soft and deep in the noiseless solitudes, The hut of the lonely woodcutter stands, a few rough beams that show A blunted peak and a low black line, from the glittering waste of snow. In the frost-still dawn from his roof goes up in the windless, motionless air, The thin, pink curl of leisurely smoke; through the forest white and bare The woodcutter follows his narrow trail, and the morning rings and cracks With the rhythmic jet of his sharp-blown breath and the echoing shout of his axe. Only the waft of the wind besides, or the stir of some hardy bird-- The call of the friendly chickadee, or the pat of the nuthatch--is heard; Or a rustle comes from a dusky clump, where the busy siskins feed, And scatter the dimpled sheet of the snow with the shells of the cedar-seed. Day after day the woodcutter toils untiring with axe and wedge, Till the jingling teams come up from the road that runs by the valley's edge, With plunging of horses, and hurling of snow, and many a shouted word, And carry away the keen-scented fruit of his cutting, cord upon cord. Not the sound of a living foot comes else, not a moving visitant there, Save the delicate step of some halting doe, or the sniff of a prowling bear. And only the stars are above him at night, and the trees that creak and groan, And the frozen, hard-swept mountain-crests with their silent fronts of stone, As he watches the sinking glow of his fire and the wavering flames upcaught, Cleaning his rifle or mending his moccasins, sleepy and slow of thought. Or when the fierce snow comes, with the rising wind, from the grey north-east, He lies through the leaguering hours in his bunk like a winter-hidden beast, Or sits on the hard-packed earth, and smokes by his draught-blown guttering fire, Without thought or remembrance, hardly awake, and waits for the storm to tire. Scarcely he hears from the rock-rimmed heights to the wild ravines below, Near and far-off, the limitless wings of the tempest hurl and go In roaring gusts that plunge through the cracking forest, and lull, and lift, All day without stint and all night long with the sweep of the hissing drift. But winter shall pass ere long with its hills of snow and its fettered dreams, And the forest shall glimmer with living gold, and chime with the gushing of streams; Millions of little points of plants shall prick through its matted floor, And the wind-flower lift and uncurl her silken buds by the woodman's door; The sparrow shall see and exult; but lo! as the spring draws gaily on, The woodcutter's hut is empty and bare, and the master that made it is gone. He is gone where the gathering of valley men another labour yields, To handle the plough, and the harrow, and scythe, in the heat of the summer fields. He is gone with his corded arms, and his ruddy face, and his moccasined feet, The animal man in his warmth and vigour, sound, and hard, and complete. And all summer long, round the lonely hut, the black earth burgeons and breeds, Till the spaces are filled with the tall-plumed ferns and the triumphing forest-weeds; The thick wild raspberries hem its walls, and, stretching on either hand, The red-ribbed stems and the giant-leaves of the sovereign spikenard stand. So lonely and silent it is, so withered and warped with the sun and snow, You would think it the fruit of some dead man's toil a hundred years ago; And he who finds it suddenly there, as he wanders far and alone, Is touched with a sweet and beautiful sense of something tender and gone, The sense of a struggling life in the waste, and the mark of a soul's command, The going and coming of vanished feet, the touch of a human hand.

AMOR VITÆ

I love the warm bare earth and all That works and dreams thereon: I love the seasons yet to fall: I love the ages gone,

The valleys with the sheeted grain, The river's smiling might, The merry wind, the rustling rain, The vastness of the night.

I love the morning's flame, the steep Where down the vapour clings: I love the clouds that float and sleep, And every bird that sings.

I love the purple shower that pours On far-off fields at even: I love the pine-wood dusk whose floors Are like the courts of heaven.

I love the heaven's azure span, The grass beneath my feet: I love the face of every man Whose thought is swift and sweet.

I let the wrangling world go by, And like an idle breath Its echoes and its phantoms fly: I care no jot for death.

Time like a Titan bright and strong Spreads one enchanted gleam: Each hour is but a fluted song, And life a lofty dream.

WINTER-BREAK

All day between high-curded clouds the sun Shone down like summer on the steaming planks. The long, bright icicles in dwindling ranks Dripped from the murmuring eaves till one by one They fell. As if the spring had now begun, The quilted snow, sun-softened to the core, Loosened and shunted with a sudden roar From downward roofs. Not even with day done Had ceased the sound of waters, but all night I heard it. In my dreams forgetfully bright Methought I wandered in the April woods, Where many a silver-piping sparrow was, By gurgling brooks and spouting solitudes, And stooped, and laughed, and plucked hepaticas.