We drink the same stream and view the same sun
And run the same course that our fathers have run.
Pausing again, as if a line of thought ran in between the verses, he looked away from the book. The next verse was about the mother and child—each, all are away to their dwelling of rest.
He seemed now hesitating whether or not to proceed. The men watched him without comment. His gray face was marked with a fresh baptism of pain which he seemed to be struggling to put away.
With unsteady voice he read.
The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Show beauty and pleasure—
Here there was a long pause. Ole Bar got up and went out. Kit Parsons poked the fire. Buck Thompson took to spitting. But no man spoke as the voice by the fire pronounced the words "her triumphs—are by," and even the fire seemed to burn softly.
For a moment he glanced about the group—a helpless glance of appeal to those strong men. Buck Thompson was drawing his sleeves across his eye, evidently to remove some foreign matter. Jack Armstrong was pinching his red bandanna down under his leg. Another chunk was pitched into the fire.
It was a relief when he went on again to the "Hand of the king that the scepter hath borne," and the "brow of the priest that the miter hath worn." They seemed to see the king and the priest and they felt the force of the words as he read:
From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink.
To the lives we are clinging our fathers would cling.
But it speeds from us all—like—a—bird—on—the—wing.