Classic Poem

How long a day through thickets and over stones
And over broad red furrows fresh from the plough,
And hills where low the wind-bent heather drones
And swift airs whistle round the sky-line bough!
How the wind clutched at flesh and bowels and bones!
How breathless they were all day, how weary now,
When in the town beneath a fading light
They sought a lodging for their transient night.

What in what frenzy did they thus pursue?
Eternal wisdom or the baser gold
Or pleasures of the senses ever new
Or rarer spiritual ecstasies still untold?
From dawn till dusk, with sun, wind, hills, rain, dew,
They were burnt or they were weary or they were cold
Or wet or dirty. Still they chased untired
A thing not named but endlessly desired.

But when the chase was done at last, they came
Into the darkling town with empty hands;
Their faces through the dusk burnt with a flame
Wind caught, their feet were heavy from marshy lands.
They brought with them no answer to their proud claim,
No prize given over to their loud demands;
They found an inn, where windows long and low
Streaked the thick darkness with a golden glow.

Inns of our nights, where we have sat together,
Boots off and dreaming at the magic fire!
There the mind's free, the spirit casts its tether
The thoughts in concert dance and do not tire,
Till sleep with silent foot and sudden feather
Brushes his drugs across the joy and desire
And all long night is darkness and deep peace,
In the old inn, walled round with silent trees.

The happy good find this when the day is spent,
When they have filled their day with seeing and knowing.
Here from their chase they came and found content
And reaped at night good grain of early sowing,
Laughter by tears and joy by sorrow lent
And gifts on unexpected breezes blowing—
We too shall sit, after youth's fret and rage,
In the comfortable bar of middle age.

Yet while light burns and the air aches in our veins
And we are capable of anger and love,
Slow fires of the senses, swift play of the brains
And tenderness and friendliness enough,
We will be out in the winds, the dews, the rains,
And find our meaning in such transient stuff,
While through sharp, veering gusts of tears and mirth,
We chase our wild geese over the windy earth.