Classic Poem

For twenty years the lonesome meres
Claimed Otus as their child.
They heard each lay his flute did play
When summer skies were mild:
And they heard his cry when the leaden sky
Raged, like a thing defiled.

Who watcheth long shall hear the song
The glad home-comers sing.
Who liveth well shall come to dwell
In palace of the king.
And what are fears, that thread the years,
To joys a day may bring.

And well I know the ancient woe
Shall come to me again:
Yet it shall wear a gentler air,
And grant me less of pain.
But the joys I buried shall return
In tenfold, like the grain.

The vernal clover hath three tongues
To drink the golden light.
And rule of three binds land and sea,
In Morning, Noon, and Night.
And through the three of Trinity
Doth God assert His might.

And three great days to Otus came;
As three come to us all —
The day the wondrous fish arose
To hear his flute's strange call;
And the hour the mermaid left her bower
Under the sad sea wall.

And on the third, and greatest day,
He walked on Gramard's hill:
And while his thoughts were on that love
The years could never kill,
A laugh rode on the rippling air
Like a spring-awakened rill.

And Otus stilled his flute, and cried;
" Rismel, Rismel, Rismel. "
And though the word three times was heard,
No answer, low and dismal,
Moaned under the walls of sobbing halls,
In sea arcades abysmal.

But at his side a maiden stood;
And she was tall and fair:
And she was crowned with crimson hood
That partly hid her hair.
And the deeps of seas were in her eyes;
And Rismel's soul lay there.

Who watcheth long shall hear the song
The glad home-comers sing.
Who liveth well shall come to dwell
In palace of the king.
And what are all the woes of Time
To joys a day may bring!

The years bridge chasms deep and wide:
They bridge them span by span.
And bolt, and thong, and tier are strong;
And true the Builder's plan.
And where the long, white arches end
Stands Christ, the Son of Man.