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Title: The Vagrant of Time Author: Roberts, Charles George Douglas (1860-1943) Photographer: Calder, Walter Hughes (1871-1953) Date of first publication: 1927 Edition used as base for this ebook: Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1927 [first edition] Date first posted: 8 January 2011 Date last updated: 8 January 2011 Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #694 This ebook was produced by Al Haines [Frontispiece: Charles G. D. Roberts. _Photo by Walter H. Calder, Vancouver_] The Vagrant _of_ Time CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS THE RYERSON PRESS TORONTO _This edition of "The Vagrant of Time," by Charles G. D. Roberts, five hundred copies have been printed, of which four hundred and eighty-five are for sale._ Copyright, Canada, 1927, by THE RYERSON PRESS _To_ CHARLES MAIR CONTENTS The Vagrant of Time In the Night Watches Hath Hope Kept Vigil An Epitaph Spring Breaks in Foam Sister to the Wild Rose Sweet o' the Year Asterope To-day On the Road The Unknown City In the Valley of Luchon Hill Top Songs--I Hill Top Songs--II O Earth, Sufficing All Our Needs Wayfarer of Earth Under the Pillars of the Sky The Good Earth Eastward Bound All Night the Lone Cicada With April Here When in the Rowan Tree The Hour of Most Desire From the High Window of Your Room The Flower To Shakespeare in 1916 When the Cloud comes down the Mountain The Stream The Summons Monition The Place of His Rest Going Over Cambrai and Marne Beppo's Song Philander's Song A Blue Violet Night on the Lagoon New Year's Eve (from the French) The Vagrant of Time I voyage north, I journey south, I taste the life of many lands, With ready wonder in my eyes And strong adventure in my hands. I join the young-eyed caravans That storm the portals of the West; And sometimes in their throng I catch Hints of the secret of my quest. The musks and attars of the East, Expecting marvels, I explore. I chase them down the dim bazaar, I guess them through the close-shut door. In the lone cabin, sheathed in snow, I bide a season, well content, Till forth again I needs must fare, Called by an unknown continent. I loiter down remembered shores Where restless tide-flows lift and In my wild heart their restlessness And in my veins their tireless urge. In old grey cities oft I dwell, Down storied rivers drift and dream. Sometimes in palaces I lose, Sometimes in hovels catch, the gleam. Great fortune in my wayfaring I stumble on, more oft than not,-- Grip comrade hands in hall or camp, Greet ardent lips in court or cot. Down country lanes at noon I stray, Loaf in the homely wayside heat, And with bright flies and droning bees Rifle the buckwheat of its sweet. In solitudes of peak or plain, When vaulted space my sense unbars, I pitch my tent, and camp the night Beyond the unfathomed gulfs of stars. At times I thirst, at times I faint, Sink mired in swamp, stray blind in storm, See high hopes shattered, faiths betrayed,-- But stout heart keeps my courage warm. And sometimes rock-ridged steeps I climb In chill black hours before the dawn. With battered shins and bleeding feet And obstinate fists I blunder on. And then, when sunrise floods my path, I pause to build my dreams anew. But, take the gipsying all in all, I find a-many dreams come true. So when, one night, I drop my pack Behind the Last Inn's shadowy door. To take my rest in that lone room Where no guest ever lodged before, In sleep too deep for dreams I'll lie,-- Till One shall knock, and bid me rise To quest new ventures, fare new roads, Essay new suns and vaster skies. IN THE NIGHT WATCHES When the little spent winds are at rest in the tamarack tree In the still of the night, And the moon in her waning is wan and misshapen, And out on the lake The loon floats in a glimmer of light, And the solitude sleeps,-- Then I lie in my bunk wide awake. And my long thoughts stab me with longing, Alone in my shack by the marshes of lone Margaree. Far, oh so far in the forests of silence they lie, The lake and the marshes of lone Margaree, And no man comes my way. Of spruce logs my cabin is builded securely: With slender spruce saplings its bark roof is battened down surely; In its rafters the mice are at play, With rustlings furtive and shy, In the still of the night. Awake, wide-eyed I watch my window-square, Pallid and grey. (O Memory, pierce me not! O Longing, stab me not! O ache of longing memory, pass me by, and spare, And let me sleep!) Once and again the loon cries from the lake. Though no breath stirs The ghostly tamaracks and the brooding firs. Something as light as air leans on my door. Is it an owl's wing brushes at my latch? Are they of foxes, those light feet that creep Outside, light as fall'n leaves On the forest floor? From the still lake I hear A feeding trout rise to some small night fly. The splash, how sharply clear! Almost I see the wide, slow ripple circling to the shore. The spent winds are at rest. But my heart, spent and faint, is unresting. Long, long a stranger to peace... O so Dear, O so Far, O so Unforgotten-in-dream, Somewhere in the world, somewhere beyond reach of my questing. Beyond seas, beyond years, You will hear my heart in your sleep, and you will stir restlessly; You will stir at the touch of my hand on your hair; You will wake with a start, With my voice in your ears And an old, old ache at your heart, (In the still of the night) And your pillow wet with tears. HATH HOPE KEPT VIGIL Frail lilies that beneath the dust so long Have lain in cerements of musk and slumber, While over you hath fled the viewless throng Of hours and winds and voices out of number. Pulseless and dead in that enswathing dark Hath hope kept vigil at your core of being? Did the germ know what unextinguished spark Held these white blooms within its heart unseeing? Once more into the dark when I go down, And deep and deaf the black clay seals my prison, Will the numbed soul foreknow how light shall crown With strong young ecstasy its life new risen? EPITAPH His fame the mock of shallow wits, His name the jest of fool and child. Remains the dream he fixed in form, Remains the stone he hewed and piled. Untouched by scorn that dogged his way Ere the great task was well begun, He drudged to give the vision life And died content when it was done. They pass, the mockers, and are dust, While stars conspire to enscroll his name. When roaring guns are fallen to rust This granite shall attest his fame. Eternal as the returning rose, Impregnable as the perfect rhyme, Through the long sequence of the suns His dream in stone shall outwear Time. SPRING BREAKS IN FOAM Spring breaks in foam Along the blackthorn bough. Whitethroat and goldenwing Are mating now. With green buds in the copse And gold bloom in the sun Earth is one ecstasy Of life begun. And in my heart Spring breaks in glad surprise As the long frosts of the long years melt At your dear eyes. SISTER TO THE WILD ROSE I know a maiden like a flower, (Flower-sweet, dainty sweet!) Sister to the wild rose And the wild marguerite. Petal-soft are the lips of her, (Flower-sweet, dainty-sweet!) And blue her eyes as the misty blue Where the dew and the blue-bells meet. Light her hands as the cherry blossom, (Flower-sweet, dainty-sweet!) And never so light the wind on the grass As the lightness of her feet. THE SWEET O' THE YEAR The upland hills are green again; The river runs serene again; All down the miles Of orchard aisles The pink-lip blooms are seen again; To garden close And dooryard plot Come back the rose And bergamot. The ardent blue leans near again; The far-flown swallow is here again; To his thorn-bush Returns the thrush, And the painted-wings appear again. In young surprise The meadows run All starry eyes To meet the sun. Warm runs young blood in the veins again, And warm loves flood in the rains again. Earth, all aflush With the fecund rush, To her Heart's Desire attains again; While stars outbeat The exultant word-- "Death's in defeat, And Love is Lord." ASTEROPE Whither down the ways of dream Went my starry-eyed. Tears and laughter at her lips And longing by her side? Went the joy of day with her From the shining lands,-- All the wonder of the night In her unheeding hands. Wind of June hath gone with her From the sighing tree,-- Dove-neck marvel from the mists Of the morning sea. Flowers she forgot to take Smell no longer sweet. Earth has no more pleasantness Save where fell her feet. So I seek that place of dream Where waits my starry-eyed, All the happy things of earth A-crowding at her side. TO-DAY As once by Hybna's emerald flow The goatboy saw in dream The old gods to their hunting go, And heard their eagles scream, So I, by Nashwaak's amber stream, See gods and heroes pass, While these drab days and deeds but seem Like shadows in a glass. But when a thousand years are done My eyes, unsealed, will know Beauty and glory new begun As in the long ago; And then, astonished, I shall know The splendor of To-day, When men outdare the old gods, and grow In reach more vast than they. ON THE ROAD Ever just over the top of the next brown rise I expect some wonderful thing to flatter my eyes. "What's yonder?" I ask of the first wayfarer I meet. "Nothing!" he answers, and looks at my travel-worn feet. "Only more hills and more hills, like the many you've passed. With rough country between, and a poor enough inn at the last." But already I am a-move, for I see he is blind, And I hate that old grumble I've listened to time out of mind. I've tramped it too long not to know there is truth in it still, That lure of the turn of the road, of the crest of the hill. So I breast me the rise with full hope, well assured I shall see Some new prospect of joy, some brave venture a-tiptoe for me. For I have come far, and confronted the calm and the strife. I have fared wide, and bit deep in the apple of life. It is sweet at the rind, but oh, sweeter still at the core; And whatever be gained, yet the reach of the morrow is more. At the crest of the hill I shall hail the new summits to climb. The demand of my vision shall beggar the largess of time. For I know that the higher I press, the wider I view. The more's to be ventured and visioned, in worlds that are new. So when my feet, failing, shall stumble in ultimate dark, And faint eyes no more the high lift of the pathway shall mark, There under the dew I'll lie down with my dreams, for I know What bright hill-tops the morning will show me, all red in the glow. THE UNKNOWN CITY There lies a city inaccessible, Where the dead dreamers dwell. Abrupt and blue, with many a high ravine And soaring bridge half seen, With many an iris cloud that comes and goes Over the ancient snows, The imminent hills environ it, and hold Its portals from of old, That grief invade not, weariness, nor war. Nor anguish evermore. White-walled and jettied on the peacock tide, With domes and towers enskied. Its battlements and balconies one sheen Of ever-living green, It hears the happy dreamers turning home Slow-oared across the foam. Cool are its streets with waters musical And fountains' shadowy fall. With orange and anemone and rose, And every flower that blows Of magic scent or unimagined dye, Its gardens shine and sigh. Its chambers, memoried with old romance And faëry circumstance,-- From any window love may lean some time For love that dares to climb. This is that city babe and seer divined With pure, believing mind. This is the home of unachieved emprize. Here, here the visioned eyes Of them that dream past any power to do, Wake to the dream come true. Here the high failure, not the level fame, Attests the spirit's aim. Here is fulfilled each hope that soared and sought Beyond the bournes of thought. The obdurate marble yields; the canvas glows; Perfect the column grows; The chorded cadence art could ne'er attain Crowns the imperfect strain; And the great song that seemed to die unsung Triumphs upon the tongue. IN THE VALLEY OF LUCHON Day long, and night long. From the soaring peaks and the snow, Down through the valley villages The cold white waters flow. Quiet are the villages; And very quiet the cloud At rest on the breast of the mountain; But the falling waves are loud Through the little, clustering cottages, Through the little, climbing fields, Where every sunburnt vineyard Its patch of purple yields. High hung, a steel-bright scimitar. The crooked glacier gleams. The white church dreams in the valley Where the red oleander dreams. And every wonder of beauty Comes, as a dream comes, true, Where the sun drips rose from the ledges And the moon by the peak swims blue. HILL TOP SONGS I. Here on the hill At last the soul sees clear, Desire being still, The High Unseen appear. The thin grass bends One way, and hushed attends Unknown and gracious ends. Where the sheep's pasturing feet Have cleft the sods The mystic light lies sweet; The very clods, In purpling hues elate, Thrill to their fate; The high rock-hollows wait, Expecting gods. II. When the lights come out in the cottages Along the shores at eve, And across the darkening water The last pale shadows leave; And up from the rock-ridged pasture slopes The sheep-bell tinklings steal, And the folds are shut, and the shepherds Turn to their quiet meal; And even here, on the unfenced height, No journeying wind goes by, But the earth-sweet smells, and the home-sweet sounds, Mount, like prayer, to the sky; Then from the door of my opened heart Old blindness and pride are driven, Till I know how high is the humble, The dear earth how close to heaven. O EARTH, SUFFICING ALL OUR NEEDS O Earth, sufficing all our needs, O you With room for body and for spirit too, How patient while your children vex their souls Devising alien heavens beyond your blue! Dear dwelling of the immortal and unseen, How obstinate in my blindness have I been. Not comprehending what your tender calls, Veiled promises and re-assurance, mean. Not far and cold the way that they have gone Who through your sundering darkness have withdrawn; Almost within our hand-reach they remain Who pass beyond the sequence of the dawn. Not far and strange the Heaven, but very near, Your children's hearts unknowingly hold dear. At times we almost catch the door swung wide. An unforgotten voice almost we hear. I am the heir of Heaven--and you are just. You, you alone I know--and you I trust. I have sought God beyond His farthest star-- But here I find Him, in your quickening dust. WAYFARER OF EARTH Up, heart of mine, Thou wayfarer of earth! Of seed divine, Be mindful of thy birth. Though the flesh faint Through long-endured constraint Of nights and days, Lift up thy praise To life, that set thee in such strenuous ways. And left thee not To drowse and rot In some thick-perfumed and luxurious plot. Strong, strong is earth With vigour for thy feet, To make thy wayfaring Tireless and fleet. And good is earth,-- But earth not all thy good, O thou with seed of suns And star-fire in thy blood! And though thou feel The slow clog of the hours Leaden upon thy heel, Put forth thy powers. Thine the deep sky, The unpreëmpted blue, The haste of storm, The hush of dew. Thine, thine the free Exalt of star and tree, The reinless run Of wind and sun, The vagrance of the sea. UNDER THE PILLARS OF THE SKY Under the pillars of the sky I played at life, I knew not why. The grave recurrence of the day Was matter of my trivial play. The solemn stars, the sacred night, I took for toys of my delight, Till now, with startled eyes, I see The portents of Eternity. THE GOOD EARTH The smell of burning weeds Upon the twilight air; The piping of the frogs From meadows wet and bare; A presence in the wood, And in my blood a stir; In all the ardent earth No failure or demur. O spring wind, sweet with love And tender with desire, Pour into veins of mine Your pure, impassioned fire. O waters, running free With full, exultant song, Give me, for outworn dream, Life that is clean and strong. O good Earth, warm with youth, My childhood heart renew. Make me elate, sincere, Simple and glad, as you. O springing things of green, O waiting things of bloom, O winging things of air, Your lordship now resume. EASTWARD BOUND We mount the arc of ocean's round To meet the splendours of the sun; Then downward rush into the dark When the blue, spacious day is done. The slow, eternal drift of stars Draws over us until the dawn, Then the grey steep we mount once more, And night is down the void withdrawn. Space, and interminable hours, And moons that rise, and sweep, and fall,-- On-swinging earth, and orbèd sea,-- And voyaging souls more vast than all! ALL NIGHT THE LONE CICADA All night the lone cicada Kept shrilling through the rain, A voice of joy undaunted By unforgotten pain. Down from the tossing branches Rang out the high refrain, By tumult undisheartened. By storm assailed in vain. To looming vasts of mountain. To shadowy deeps of plain The ephemeral, brave defiance Adventured not in vain,-- Till to my faltering spirit, And to my weary brain. From loss and fear and failure My joy returned again. WITH APRIL HERE With April here, And first thin green on the awakening bough. What wonderful things and dear, My tired heart to cheer. At last appear! Colours of dream afloat on cloud and tree. So far, so clear, A spell, a mystery; And joys that thrill and sing, New come on mating wing, The wistfulness and ardour of the Spring,-- And Thou! WHEN IN THE ROWAN TREE When in the rowan tree The coloured light fades slowly, And the quiet dusk, All lilied, breathes of you, Then, Heart's Content, I feel your hair enfolding me, And tender comes the dark, Bringing me--you. And when across the sea The rose-dawn opens slowly, And the gold breaks, and the blue, All glad of you, Then, Heart's Reward, Red, red is your mouth for me, And life to me means love, And love means--you. THE HOUR OF MOST DESIRE It is not in the day That I desire you most, Turning to seek your smile For solace or for joy. Nor is it in the dark, When I toss restlessly, Groping to find your face, Half waking, half in dream. It is not while I work-- When, to endear success, Or rob defeat of pain, I weary for your hands. Nor while from work I rest, And rest is all unrest For lack of your dear voice, Your laughter, and your lips. But every hour it is That I desire you most-- Need you in all my life And every breath I breathe. FROM THE HIGH WINDOW OF YOUR ROOM From the high window of your room, Above the roofs, and streets, and cries, Lying awake and still, I watch The wonder of the dawn arise. Slow tips the world's deliberate rim, Descending to the baths of day: Up floats the pure, ethereal tide And floods the outworn dark away. The city's sprawled, uneasy bulk Illumines slowly in my sight. The crowded roofs, the common walls, The grey streets, melt in mystic light. It passes. Then, with longing sore For that veiled light of paradise, I turn my face,--and find it in The wonder of your waking eyes. THE FLOWER I am the man who found a flower, A blossom blown upon the wind, More radiant than the sunrise rose, More sweet than lotus-airs of Ind. I clutched the flower, and on my heart I crushed its petals, red and burning. O ecstasy of life new-born! O youth returned, the unreturning! I am the man who dared the Gods And under their thunderbolts lay blest, Because I found the flower, and wore it One wild hour upon my breast. TO SHAKESPEARE IN 1916 With what white wrath must turn thy bones, What stern amazement flame thy dust, To feel so near this England's heart The outrage of the assassin's thrust! How must thou burn to have endured The acclaim of these whose fame unclean Reeks from the _Lusitania's_ slain, Stinks from the orgies of Malines! But surely, too, thou art consoled (Who knew'st thy stalwart breed so well) To see us rise from sloth, and go, Plain and unbragging, through this hell. And surely, too, thou art assured. Hark how that grim and gathering beat Draws upwards from the ends of earth,-- The tramp, tramp, of thy kinsmen's feet. WHEN THE CLOUD COMES DOWN THE MOUNTAIN When the cloud comes down the mountain, And the rain is loud on the leaves, And the slim flies gather for shelter Under my cabin eaves,-- Then my heart goes out to earth, With the swollen brook runs free, Drinks life with the drenched brown roots, And climbs with the sap in the tree. THE STREAM I know a stream Than which no lovelier flows. Its banks a-gleam With yarrow and wild rose, Singing it goes And shining through my dream. Its waters glide Beneath the basking noon, A magic tide That keeps perpetual June. There the light sleeps Unstirred by any storm; The wild mouse creeps Through tall weeds hushed and warm; And the shy snipe, Alighting unafraid, With sudden pipe Awakes the dreaming shade. So long ago! Still, still my memory hears Its silver flow Across the sundering years-- Its roses glow. Ah, through what longing tears! THE SUMMONS Deeps of the wind-torn west, Flaming and desolate, Upsprings my soul from his rest With your banners at the gate. 'Neath this o'ermastering sky How could the heart lie still. Or the sluggish will Content in the old chains lie, When over the lonely hill Your torn wild scarlets cry? Up, Soul, and out Into the deeps alone, To the long peal and the shout Of those trumpets blown and blown! MONITION A faint wind, blowing from World's End, Made strange the city street. A strange sound mingled in the fall Of the familiar feet. Something unseen whirled with the leaves To tap on door and sill. Something unknown went whispering by Even when the wind was still. And men looked up with startled eyes And hurried on their way, As if they had been called, and told How brief their day. THE PLACE OF HIS REST The green marsh-mallows Are over him. Along the shallows The pale lights swim. Wide air, washed grasses, And waveless stream; And over him passes The drift of dream;-- The pearl-hue down Of the poplar seed; The elm-flower brown; And the sway of the reed; The blue moth, winged With a flake of sky; The bee, gold ringed; And the dragon fly. Lightly the rushes Lean to his breast; A bird's wing brushes The place of his rest. The far-flown swallow, The gold-finch flame,-- They come, they follow The paths he came. 'Tis the land of No Care Where now he lies, Fulfilled the prayer Of his weary eyes: And while around him The kind grass creeps. Where peace hath found him How sound he sleeps. Well to his slumber Attends the year: Soft rains without number Soft noons, blue clear. With nights of balm, And the dark, sweet hours Brooding with calm, Pregnant with flowers. See how she speeds them, Each childlike bloom, And softly leads them To tend his tomb!-- The white-thorn nears As the cowslip goes; Then the iris appears; And then, the rose. GOING OVER A girl's voice in the night troubled my heart. Across the roar of the guns, the crash of the shells, Low and soft as a sigh, clearly I heard it. Where was the broken parapet, crumbling about me? Where my shadowy comrades, crouching expectant? A girl's voice in the dark troubled my heart. A dream was the ooze of the trench, the wet clay slipping. A dream the sudden out-flare of the wide-flung Verys. I saw but a garden of lilacs, a-flower in the dusk. What was the sergeant saying?--I passed it along.-- Did _I_ pass it along? I was breathing the breath of the lilacs. For a girl's voice in the night troubled my heart. Over! How the mud sucks! Vomits red the barrage. But I am far off in the hush of a garden of lilacs. For a girl's voice in the night troubled my heart. Tender and soft as a sigh, clearly I heard it. CAMBRAI AND MARNE Before our trenches at Cambrai We saw their columns cringe away. We saw their masses melt and reel Before our line of leaping steel. A handful to their storming hordes We scourged them with the scourge of swords, And still, the more we slew, the more Came up for every slain a score. Between the hedges and the town Their cursing squadrons we rode down. To stay them we outpoured our blood Between the beetfields and the wood. In that red hell of shrieking shell Unfaltering our gunners fell. They fell, or e'er that day was done, Beside the last unshattered gun. But still we held them, like a wall On which the breakers vainly fall-- Till came the word, and we obeyed, Reluctant, bleeding, undismayed. Our feet, astonished, learned retreat, Our souls rejected still defeat. Unbroken still, a lion at bay, We drew back grimly from Cambrai. In blood and sweat, with slaughter spent, They thought us beaten as we went; Till suddenly we turned and smote The shout of triumph in their throat. At last, at last we turned and stood-- And Marne's fair water ran with blood. We stood by trench and steel and gun, For now the indignant flight was done. We ploughed their shaken ranks with fire. We trod their masses into mire. Our sabres drove through their retreat, As drives the whirlwind through young wheat. At last, at last we flung them back Along their drenched and smoking track. We hurled them back, in blood and flame. The reeking ways by which they came. By cumbered road and desperate ford. How fled their shamed and harassed horde! Shout, Sons of Freemen, for the day When Marne so well avenged Cambrai! BEPPO'S SONG (From "The Sprightly Pilgrim") Oh some are for the cities of men, And some are for the sea, And some for a book in a musty nook,-- But the lips of a maid for me! And some are for the forest and field, For their whim is to be free. But the lips of a maid in the chestnut shade Are freedom enough for me! PHILANDER'S SONG (From "The Sprightly Pilgrim") I sat and read Anacreon. Moved by the gay, delicious measure I mused that lips were made for love, And love to charm a poet's leisure. And as I mused a maid came by With something in her look that caught me. Forgotten was Anacreon's line, But not the lesson he had taught me. A BLUE VIOLET Blossom that spread'st, ere spring brings in Her sudden flights of swallows. Thy nets of blue, cool-meshed and thin, In rain-wet pasture hollows, Thronging the dim grass everywhere Amid thy heart-leaves tender, Thy temperate fairness seems more fair Even than August's splendour! Yet do I hear complaints of thee, Men doubting of thy fragrance! Ah, Dear, thou hast revealed to me That shyest of perfume vagrants! Do ever so, my Flower discreet, And all the world be fair to, While men but guess that rarest sweet Which one alone can swear to. ON THE LAGOON Soothe, soothe The day-fall, soothe, Till wrinkling winds and seas are smooth. Till yon low band Of purpling strand Breathe seaward dreams from the inner land, Till lapped in mild half-lights our dream-blown boat Is felt to float. To fall, to float. The sundown rose Delays and glows O'er yon spired peak's remoter snows. Uprolling soon The red-ripe moon Lolls in the pines in drowsed half swoon; Till thin moon shades entangle us, and shift Our visions as we drift And drift. From musk-rose blooms In the coppice glooms Glide argosies of spice perfumes. The slow-pulsed seas, The shadowy trees, The night spell holds us one with these, Till, Dear, we scarce know life from sleep, but seem Dissolved together In sweet half dream. NEW YEAR'S EVE (After the French of Frechette) Ye night winds, shaking the weighted boughs Of snow-blanched hemlock and frosted fir, While crackles sharply the thin crust under The passing feet of the wayfarer; Ye night cries, pulsing in long-drawn waves Where beats the bitter tide to its flood,-- A tumult of pain, a rumour of sorrow. Troubling the starred night's tranquil mood; Ye shudderings where, like a great beast bound, The forest strains to its depths remote; Be still and hark! From the high gray tower The great bell sobs in its brazen throat. A strange voice out of the pallid heaven, Twelve sobs it utters and stops. Midnight! 'Tis the ominous _Hail!_ and the stern _Farewell!_ Of Past and Present in passing flight. This moment, herald of hope and doom, That cries in our ears and then is gone, Has marked for us in the awful volume One step toward the infinite dark--or dawn! A year is gone, and a year begins. Ye wise ones, knowing in Nature's scheme, Oh tell us whither they go, the years That drop in the gulfs of time and dream! They go to the goal of all things mortal. Where fade our destinies, scarce perceived, To the dim abyss wherein time confounds them-- The hours we laughed and the days we grieved. They go where the bubbles of rainbow break-- We breathed in our youth of love and fame, Where great and small are as one together And oak and windflower counted the same. They go where follow our smiles and tears, The gold of youth and the gray of age, Where falls the storm and falls the stillness, The laughter of spring and winter's rage. What hand shall gauge the depth of time Or a little measure eternity? God only, as they unroll before Him, Conceives and orders the mystery. [End of The Vagrant of Time, by Charles G. D. Roberts]