For the strength of man is an insect's strength
In the face of that mighty plain and river,
And the life of a man is a moment's length
To the life of the stream that will run for ever.
And so it cometh they take no part
In small-world worries; each hardy rover
Rideth abroad and is light of heart,
With the plains around and the blue sky over.
And up in the heavens the brown lark sings
The songs that the strange wild land has taught her;
Full of thanksgiving her sweet song rings —
And I wish I were back by the Grey Gulf-water.
Jessie Mackay.
The Grey Company
O the grey, grey company
Of the pallid dawn!
O the ghostly faces,
Ashen-like and drawn!
The Lord's lone sentinels
Dotted down the years,
The little grey company
Before the pioneers.
Dreaming of Utopias
Ere the time was ripe,
They awoke to scorning,
The jeering and the strife.
Dreaming of millenniums
In a world of wars,
They awoke to shudder
At a flaming Mars.
Never was a Luther
But a Huss was first —
A fountain unregarded
In the primal thirst.
Never was a Newton
Crowned and honoured well,
But first, alone, Galileo
Wasted in a cell.
In each other's faces
Looked the pioneers;
Drank the wine of courage
All their battle years.
For their weary sowing
Through the world wide,
Green they saw the harvest
Ere the day they died.
But the grey, grey company
Stood every man alone
In the chilly dawnlight,
Scarcely had they known
Ere the day they perished,
That their beacon-star
Was not glint of marsh-light
In the shadows far.
The brave white witnesses
To the truth within
Took the dart of folly,
Took the jeer of sin;
Crying "Follow, follow,
Back to Eden gate!"
They trod the Polar desert,
Met a desert fate.
Be laurel to the victor,
And roses to the fair,
And asphodel Elysian
Let the hero wear;
But lay the maiden lilies
Upon their narrow biers —
The lone grey company
Before the pioneers.