  As one that in the sapless winter of life Feels the benumbing touch of icy death Chill his warm pulses, and no more for strife Against the foe that ever followeth Finds the old fire within, or power, or breath, But knows that soon the eternal frost shall bind These failing organs of his earthly mind: And looking backward through the misty years Beyond the harvest and the summer glow, Into awakening life's fresh springtide, hears Voices that rang around him long ago,— Strange sweet dream-music that he seems to know, And dimly sees old faces that made bright The days of childhood with love's softest light: Like one beneath the glimmering starlight treading Ways unfamiliar save in the full sun, He moves bewildered where remembrance, shedding Faint fitful gleams, illumines one by one Far-distant scenes where life was first begun, Quick with light-hearted fancies and fresh hope, Fearless and steadfast with all foes to cope: And as he looks he wonders if indeed That life beyond the years be truly his— His those high-soaring hopes, that simple creed, That buoyant spirit: till some light that is The lode-star of his life shines out in this Far-off child-world, some goal whereto his aim Has aye been set unchangingly the same. And so to eyes that through long-buried ages Look on that alien-seeming world, that glows Pictured in fire upon the sacred pages Where God his dealings with his children shows,— A larger life than our dwarfed spirit knows,— Man in the giant vigour of his prime Looming heroic even through guilt and crime; Creature in converse with Creator,—signs Of power writ large in heaven and on the earth,— Pillar of cloud by day and fire that shines In darkness,—plague and pestilence and dearth And deluge,—almost from our very birth Familiar,—yet how strange and far away From all the fever of our little day. Yet as we look on that mysterious story, Scarce feeling kinship with that primal race, We that with sin have marred and dimmed the glory Of God's own presence manifest by grace, Until he seems to hide afar his face, Find something in our deadened hearts that rings Responsive to those far-off echoings. Ours the old war with sin, the struggle of soul In passions' eddying waters, ours the choice To falter and fail, or battle towards the goal Unyielding; and at times our hearts rejoice, When borne from out the distance comes a voice Of brother-men that in the self-same strife Have fought through weakness and have won their life. And more than all, when haply shines above The clouds and heavy mists of low desire The perfect beauty of true human love, Beaconing through the darkness like a fire, And witnessing that hearts can yet aspire To kinship with the soul that shone in Ruth, Of woman's faithfulness and woman's truth. |
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