A touch to the raveled life-cord
Or ever it snaps in twain;
And as the light of the starlit night
They silently pass again.
THE DREAMER AND THE DOER
The Dreamer saw a vision
High in th’ empyrean blue,
And slowly it passed until at last
He called to the Man he knew—
“Look, thou Dolt of the Blinded Heart—
Slave of Rod and Rule—
And drink of the wine of my sight divine—
Oh churl of a plodding school!”
The Doer he checked and plotted
And hammered and pieced again,
But his eyes they were on the things that he saw—
The Things of the Earth-bound Men:
And he called to the Dreamer passing—
“Oh stop, thou fool, and see
On water and land the work of my hand,
For the service of such as thee.”
“Dolt,” said the Dreamer, “ye stole my dream
I showed where the lightnings ran ...”
“Fool,” said the Doer, “but for my toil—
Ye’d still be a Stone-age Man.”
SPAIN
Might and far-flung power
And we call the vision Rome,
Where the close-locked legions trample
And the triremes cut the foam.
Grace and regal beauty—
And Athena’s temples rise
Above the fertile Attic plains
And blue Ægean skies.
But when, in wanton whispers
Creeps o’er the tired brain
The word Romance, there falls the trance—
The spell of olden Spain.
. . . . . . . . . .
The humdrum of the city
The workshop and the street,
They gently slip behind us—
As glide our tired feet
O’er the pavements of Sevilla,
Where the Grandees pass again
To ogle in the balconies
The matchless eyes of Spain.
Once more the somersaulting bells
In the great square tower ring—
Once more the sword and cowl draw back—
“The King—make way—The King!”
Sevilla—Mother of a world
Of pride and golden gain,
And greed and love and laughter
Of Periclean Spain.
Once more o’er purple ocean
Or coral-locked lagoon,
We watch the bowsprit cutting
The pathway of the moon.
The long white beach, the swaying palms’
Shifting silver sheen—
And the flickering flares of the flimsy fleet
Where the spear-poised fishers lean.