The Ballad of the Quest

by Virna Sheard

HISTORIES

I weary of the histories of men—
The garnered store of books in grim array;
Life's bitter salvage, leather-bound, and then
Left to the silence and a bloom of gray.

I weary of the stories that they hold;
The clash of arms sounds through them like a knell;
I weary of the Kings in crowns of gold,
The Kings victorious, and the Kings who fell.

There are too many tears on every page;
Too red a tide sweeps every chapter in;
There is no word of peace in any age,
Except the peace that death rode forth to win.

And old unhappiness, long wrapped in sleep,
And thrice-armed feud that passed in wrath and woe,
And white despair from many a dungeon keep,
Arise to haunt us still, where'er we go.

Yet through the years the sun was warm and sweet,
And pipers piped at morn, and night and noon,—
And there was carnival with dancing feet,
And love and joyance always came in June,—

O, to remember when the pages close—
Linked with the vision of the deathless brave,—
The nightingale, the moonlight, and the rose,
And all the beauty that the lost years gave!