Lost in that stormy atmosphere,
Men chart their seas and trudge their roads;
Inviolate, we scorn to hear
Their shouted warning that forebodes
An end to these fair episodes
Of life beneath our tranquil sky;
Having sought only peace, then why
Should we go down to death with fear?
Pomfret, 1920
II
The thinkers light their lamps in rows
From street to street, and then
The night creeps up behind, and blows
Them quickly out again.
While Age limps groping toward his home,
Hearing the feet of youth
From dark to dark that sadly roam
The suburbs of the Truth.
Paris, 1919
III
I pass my days in ghostly presences,
And when the wind at night is mute,
Far down the valley I can hear a flute
And a strange voice, not knowing what it says.
And sometimes in the interim of days,
I hear a fountain in obscure abodes,
Singing with none but me to hear, the lays
That would do pleasure to the ears of gods.