Classic Poem

Slow , groping giant, whose unsteady limbs
Waver and bend and cannot keep the path,
Thy feet are foul with mire, and thy knees
Torn by the nettles of the wayside fen;
The dust of dogmas dead is in thy mouth,
Yet down the ages thou hast followed him—
Clear-eyed Belief—who journeys with light heart.

The leaves of Hope about his head are green,
Firm falls his foot upon the path he treads,
To every day he suits his pilgrimage,
And rest at dusk is his,—complete and deep.

For thee—the bramble: thorns of vain debate
Harrow the hundred furrows of thy brow:
Sleep is not thine,—the darkness has no balm
For thy torn spirit. Deep into the night
Thy feet that gain no guidance from the stars
Press on, until before the silent tent,
Where deep and dreamlessly he lies asleep,
Thou comest with tired limbs to sink beside
The ashes of his fire and find them cold.