"And the past and the future both are met
In the present's history;
For the thread I hold is unbroken yet,
And the thing I weave is unguessed at yet,
In this human tapestry."
WISDOM AND YOUTH
In the depths of the forest Merlin dreamed;
The shuttle of noon wove light and shade
Over the moss and around the trees,
And a network among the branches made.
He sat with his back against a tree,
Grey as himself, and gnarled, and old;
The lichen was grey as the ragged beard
Over his friezen mantle's fold.
Still he sat, like an ancient stone
That time has forgotten to wear away—
While streamed the forest's green and gold,
Like banners on a windy day.
And Merlin watched, as watches a tree,
A sombre oak of antiquity,
The myriad life that seethes and hums,
Around its immobility.
Around himself, himself had made
A monstrous and a mystic spell,
Weblike, wherein he sat and dreamed;
—So in its mesh may spider dwell!
His silence heard the things that grow
In underwood of tangled green;
His vision penetrated deep,
Beneath the common surface screen;
The roots of things were plain to him,
He saw the crowded under-earth,
Where every life fought ceaselessly,
To bring a future life to birth;