Where yesterday rolled long waves of gold
Beneath the burnished blue of the sky,
A silver-white sea lies still and cold,
And a bitter wind blows by.
But nothing passes the door all day,
Though my watching eyes grow worn and dim,
Save a lean, grey wolf that swings away
To the far horizon rim.
Then, one by one, the stars glisten out
Like frozen tears on a purple pall—
The darkness folds my cabin about
And the snow begins to fall.
I will make a hearth-fire red and bright
And set a light by the window pane
For one who follows the trail to-night
That will bring him home again.
Love will ride with him my heart to bless—
Joy will out-step him across the floor—
What matters the great white loneliness
When we bar the cabin door?
THE CLIMBER
He stood alone on Fame's high mountain top,
His hands at rest, his forehead bound with bay;
And yet he watched with eyes unsatisfied
The downward winding way.
The great procession of the stars went by
Far overhead, beyond the mountain's rim,
But the unconquered worlds of time and space,
As nothing were to him.
There from his vantage ground, so still and high,
He watched the storm clouds when they rolled below,
And felt the wind mount up to where he stood
Amid eternal snow.
And sometimes in the valleys and the plains
He saw the little children at their play;
In cottage homes he saw the candle-light
Gleam out at close of day.