  Andrew Straton was my friend, With his Saxon eyes and hair, And his loyal viking spirit, Like an islesman of the North With his earldom on the sea. At his birth the mighty Mother Made of him a fondling one, Hushed from pain within her arms, With her seal upon his lips; And from that day he was numbered With the sons of consolation, Peace and cheer were in his hands, And her secret in his will. Now the night has Andrew Straton Housed from wind and storm forever In a chamber of the gloom Where no window fronts the morning, Lulled to rest at last from roving To the music of the rain. And his sleep is in the far-off Alien villages of the dusk, Where there is no voice of welcome To the country of the strangers, Save the murmur of the pines. And the fitful winds all day Through the grass with restless footfalls Haunt about his narrow door, Muttering their vast unknown Border balladry of time, To the hoarse rote of the sea. There he reassumes repose, He who never learned unrest Here amid our fury of toil, Undisturbed though all about him To the cohorts of the night Sound the bugles of the spring; And his slumber is not broken When along the granite hills Flare the torches of the dawn. More to me than kith or kin Was the silence of his speech; And the quiet of his eyes, Gathered from the lonely sweep Of the hyacinthine hills, Better to the failing spirit Than a river land in June: And to look for him at evening Was more joy than many friends. As the woodland brooks at noon Were his brown and gentle hands, And his face as the hill country Touched with the red autumn sun Frank and patient and untroubled Save by the old trace of doom In the story of the world. So the years went brightening by. Now a lyric wind and weather Breaks the leaguer of the frost, And the shining rough month March Crumbles into sun and rain; But the glad and murmurous year Wheels above his rest and wakens Not a dream for Andrew Straton. Now the uplands hold an echo From the meadow lands at morn; And the marshes hear the rivers Rouse their giant heart once more,— Hear the crunching floe start seaward From a thousand valley floors; While far on amid the hills Under stars in the clear night, The replying, the replying, Of the ice-cold rivulets Plashing down the solemn gorges In their arrowy blue speed, Fills and frets the crisp blue twilight With innumerable sound,— With the whisper of the spring. But the melting fields are empty, Something ails the bursting year. Ah, now helpless, O my rivers, Are your lifted voices now! Where is all the sweet compassion Once your murmur held for me? Cradled in your dells, I listened To your crooning, learned your language, Born your brother and your kin. When I had the morn for revel, You made music at my door; Now the days go darkling on, And I cannot guess your words. Shall young joy have troops of neighbors, While this grief must house alone? O my brothers of the hills, Who abide through stress and change, On the borders of our sorrow, With no part in human tears, Lift me up your voice again And put by this grievous thing! Ah, my rivers, Andrew Straton Leaves me here a vacant world! I must hear the roar of cities And the jargon of the schools, With no word of that one spirit Who was steadfast as the sun I must sit and hear the babble Of the worldling and the fool, Prating know-alls and reformers Busy to improve on man, With their chatter about God; Nowhere, nowhere the blue eyes, With their swift and grave regard, Falling on me with God’s look. I have seen and known and loved One who was too sure for sorrow, Too serenely wise for haste, Too compassionate for scorn, Fearless man and faultless comrade, One great heart whose beat was love. In a thousand thousand hollows Of the hills to-day there twinkle Icy-blue handbreadths of April, Where the sinking snows decay In the everlasting sun; And a thousand tiny creatures Stretch their heart to fill the world. |
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