  CHAPTER XVI THE FOREST LISTENS CHAPTER XVII HER FIRST CAMPAIGN CHAPTER XXIV A PERSONAL AFFAIR Copyright, 1915, by ROBERT W. CHAMBERS Printed in the United States of America To J. HAMBLEN SEARS Joseph! I've known you now for many years; You are the Hero of this pretty story; In him your every virtue reappears Lighting his way along the road to glory. All you possess adorns this Hero gay, Your fatal beauty, curly hair, and so forth; Like you he's always ready, night or day, To pack his doggy clothes and ties and go forth. No winsome maid beneath a summer sky, Innured to prudence, modesty, and duty Would dare demur or hesitate to fly With such a manly specimen of beauty. Accept, my friend, this tribute to your worth As publisher, explorer, lover, fighter, For men like you were destined from their birth To make a millionaire of any writer. R. W. C. WHO GOES THERE! Not with indifferent or with flippant hand Draw the curtain's corner to disclose A rose, a leaf, a path through this sad land Untrampled yet by foes. Out of the Past—the Heart's last Hermitage— A wistful Phantom glides to me again Here where I pace that solitary cage They call, The World of Men. In vain she mirrors me the Golden Age; Vain is her Voice of Spring in wood and glen; The winter sunlight falls across my page Gilding a broken pen. Withered the magic gardens which were mine; Eden, in embers, blackens in the sun; Rooting amid crushed roses the Wild Swine Still root, and spare not one. Village and spire and scented forest path, Pastures and brooks, meadows and hills and fens Heard not the secret whispering in Gath There where the Gray Boar dens, Till burst his dreadful clamour on the Rhine And all the World shrank deafened by the roar Aghast before the out-rush of Wild Swine Led by the great Gray Boar. Fallen the cloud-capped castles which were mine; Cities in ashes whiten in the sun; Rending the ruined shrines, the Rhenish Swine Still rend, and spare not one. |
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