Classic Poem

XIV

There were wild gardens in the spaces where
I sped with eager feet; there were tall trees
Majestically lonely; and blue wastes
Of water, where it seemed no man had been;
There were long shadows in the afternoon,
And velvet evenings when the constant stars
Looked down on me, lost in the perfumed dark;
There were clean rains — baptismal showers that fell
Upon my brow; and mornings shot with threads
Of beauty from the red sun's flaming loom;
And here were dreams, and pauses when it seemed
The world stood still, and Time had ceased to be;
Here energy seemed madness, speech a sin,
And Life one long Laudate without end.

Now I shall never know how many days
Had marched away, when first I heard the Sound,
The Quiet Voice that murmured in the trees
And spoke at last so that I understood.
I only know I followed when it called,
I only know I went the way it led,
Back to the old, sweet bondage, as a man
Returns to Love, however sad Love be.

When, sick of all the sorrow and distress
That flourished in the City like foul weeds,
I sought blue rivers and green, opulent meads,
And leagues of unregarded loneliness
Whereon no foot of man had seemed to press,
I did not know how great had been my needs,
How wise the woodland's gospels and her creeds,
How good her faith to one long comfortless.

But in the silence came a Voice to me;
In every wind it murmured, and I knew
It would not cease, though far my heart might roam.
It called me in the sunrise and the dew,
At noon and twilight, sadly, hungrily,
The jealous City, whispering always — " Home! "