Striving to peer through the infinite azure,
Alternate turning to earthward and falling,
Measuring life with Damastian measure,
Finite, appalling.
What does it matter! They passed who with Homer
Poured out the wine at the feet of their idols:
Passing, what found they? To-come a misnomer,
It and their idols?
Sacristan, acolyte, player, or preacher,
Each to his office, but who holds the key?
Death, only Death—thou, the ultimate teacher
Wilt show it to me.
And when the forts and the barriers fall,
Shall we then find One the true, the almighty,
Wisely to speak with the worst of us all—
Ah, Aphrodite!
Waiting, I turn from the futile, the human,
Gone is the life of me, laughing with youth
Steals to learn all in the face of a woman,
Mendicant Truth!
Rising with a bitter laugh, and murmuring the last lines, he thrust the papers into a drawer, locked it, and going quickly from the room, he went down-stairs. His horse and cart were waiting for him, and he got in.
The groom looked at him inquiringly. "The Cote Dorion!" he said, and they sped away through the night.
CHAPTER VIII
THE COST OF THE ORNAMENT
One, two, three, four, five, six miles. The sharp click of the iron hoofs on the road; the strong rush of the river; the sweet smell of the maple and the pungent balsam; the dank rich odour of the cedar swamp; the cry of the loon from the water; the flaming crane in the fishing-boat; the fisherman, spear in hand, staring into the dark waters tinged with sombre red; the voice of a lonely settler keeping time to the ping of the axe as, lengthening out his day to nightly weariness, he felled a tree; river-drivers' camps spotted along the shore; huge cribs or rafts which had swung down the great stream for scores of miles, the immense oars motionless, the little houses on the timbers blinking with light; and from cheerful raftsmen coming the old familiar song of the rivers: