And the suppliant cried, “Good Master
I asked nor fame nor gold—
I only seek the bygone peak
Where I saw the lands unfold.
“I only seek the bygone peak
Where every pathway sung,
And every sea had a ship for me,
And all the World was young.
“Oh let me know the place once more,
The parting of the lane—
Oh give me back the Four-Roads Post,
That I may choose again.”
. . . . . . . . . .
The Spirit gazed across the vale
And his eyes had a tender glow,
And his voice ran mild as ye speak to a child,
Wondrous soft and low:
“Little Waif of a Later Day,
Where the unthought hours flee,
The only treasure I have not.
Is the boon that ye ask of me.
“I can give you balms and riches—
I can ease you of your pain—
But I cannot give the Four-Roads Post—
That ye may choose again.”
THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY
Sing me a song of Chivalry,
The little Man-child said.
Of days of old when knights were bold
And fields of honor red.
Take me far to a maiden’s tower
And the black traducer slain;
To Honor and Truth and Faith forsooth—
Oh carry me back again.
So the Waif of Chance be wafted him
And set him down apace,
But never a field of tourney,
And never a knight of grace.
He set him down where the whipping flames
Leap red athwart the sky,
And the crashing wall that forms a pall
Where the fire-fighters lie.
The Waif of Chance he wafted him
Across a broken main,
And the great ship’s roll like a foundering soul
Groaned to the depths again:
But over the breast of the ocean’s crest
The plunging life-boats neared,
And the shout that burst was “Women first,”
And the men that were left—they cheered.
Where the staggering brethren dragged their loads
From the mouth of the stricken mine,
Where the hand at the throttle never flinched
At the sight of the open line;
By curb and forge and death-hung gorge—
By river, sea and plain—
The Waif of Chance the Man-child brought,
And bade him gaze again.