Having thus taken the public into my confidence, I will say
AU REVOIR.
L'ENVOI
As a pack of wolves is the hungry Past;
It hunts Man laden with hopes and fears;
Its bay swells loud with the hasting years,
Till the red fangs sink in his flank at last.
The bay grows louder, the flame ringed een
Glow with greed as the night sinks, black;
Swerve and double still o'er your track
The pitiless, questing nostrils lean.
Mark, O brothers, before I fall,
I fling this sheaf of script to your care;
Take and read it; I fain would share
My scanty gatherings with you all.
With all with the hunted, whose eyes search mine
In vain for the hint of a 'scaping clue;
With those still tranc'd, where the skies bedew
The half-op'd blossoms that round them shine.
Take my sheaf it was gleaned with toil
From fields now dimm'd in a long-sped day;
In a clime where naught but dim shadows stray
Yet its grain may sprout from a kindly soil.