THE
END OF THE TRAIL
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ONCE
more the hunters of the dusk
Are forth to search
the moorlands wide,
Among the autumn-colored hills,
And wander by the
shifting tide.
All day along the haze-hung verge
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They
scour upon a fleeing trace,
Between the red sun and the sea,
Where haunts the vision
of your face.
The plane at Martock lies and drinks
The long Septembral
gaze of blue;
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The
royal leisure of the hills
Hath wayward reveries
of you.
Far rovers of the ancient dream
Have all their will
of musing hours:
Your eyes were gray-deep as the sea,
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| Your
hands lay open in the flowers!
From mining Rawdon to Pereau,
For all the gold
they delve and share,
The goblins of the Ardise hills
Can horde no treasure
like your hair.
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The swirling tide, the lonely gulls,
The sweet low wood-winds
that rejoice—
No sound nor echo of the sea
But hath tradition
of your voice.
The crimson leaves, the yellow fruit,
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The
basking woodlands mile on mile—
No gleam in all the russet hills
But wears the solace
of your smile.
A thousand cattle rove and feed
On the great marshes
in the sun,
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And
wonder at the restless sea;
But I am glad the
year is done,
Because I am a wanderer
Upon the roads of
endless quest,
Between the hill-wind and the hills,
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| Along
the margin men call rest.
Because there lies upon my lips
A whisper of the
wind at morn,
A murmur of the rolling sea
Cradling the land
where I was born;
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Because its sleepless tides and storms
Are in my heart for
memory
And music, and its gray-green hills
Run white to bear
me company;
Because in that sad time of year,
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With
April twilight on the earth
And journeying rain upon the sea,
With the shy windflowers
was my birth;
Because I was a tiny boy
Among the thrushes
of the wood,
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And
all the rivers in the hills
Were playmates of
my solitude;
Because the holy winter night
Was for my chamber,
deep among
The dark pine forests by the sea,
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| With
woven red auroras hung,
Silent with frost and floored with snow,
With what dream
folk to people it
And bring their stories form the hills,
When all the splendid
stars were lit;
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Therefore I house me not with kin,
But journey as the
sun goes forth,
By stream and wood and marsh and sea,
Through dying summers
of the North;
Until, some hazy autumn day,
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With
yellow evening in the skies
And rime upon the tawny hills,
The far blue signal
smoke shall rise,
To tell my scouting foresters
Have heard the clarions
of rest
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70 |
Bugling,
along the outer sea,
The end of failure
and of quest.
Then all the piping Nixie folk,
Where lonesome meadow
winds are low,
Through all the valleys in the hills
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| Their
river reeds shall blow and blow,
To lead me like a joy, as when
The shining April
flowers return,
Back to a footpath by the sea
With scarlet hip
and ruined fern.
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For I must gain, ere the long night
Bury its travelers
deep with snow,
That trail among the Ardise hills
Where first I found
you years ago.
I shall not fail, for I am strong,
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And
Time is very old, they say,
And somewhere by the quiet sea
Makes no refusal to
delay.
There will I get me home, and there
Lift up your face
in my brown hand,
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With
all the rosy rusted hills
About the heart of
that dear land. |
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