alone

Theodore Roosevelt

The interpreter then called for a man-servant of his, one Great-Heart. -- Bunyan's' Pilgrim's Process


Concerning brave Captains
Our age hath made known
For all men to honour,
One standeth alone,
Of whom, o'er both oceans,
Both peoples may say:
"Our realm is diminished
With Great-Heart away."

In purpose unsparing,
In action no less,
The labours he praised
He would seek and profess
Through travail and battle,
At hazard and pain. . . .

Glum is the sky, by night imprisoned,
As over it the dark clouds creep,
Not menacing or wistful is it,
But plunged in dreary, torpid sleep.
Alone the streaks of lightning, bursting
Through cloud and shadow, seem to be,
As they flare up and blaze, conversing
Like deaf-mute demons soundlessly.

As at a signal, for an instant
A strip of sky is lit, and Lo! -
From out the murk the forests distant
Emerge, set suddenly aglow.
But the light dies, the darkness fleeing
That cloaks the startled, wakeful sky,

The folk who lived in Shakespeare's day
And saw that gentle figure pass
By London Bridge, his frequent way--
They little knew what man he was.

The pointed beard, the courteous mien,
The equal port to high and low,
All this they saw or might have seen--
But not the light behind the brow!

The doublet's modest gray or brown,
The slender sword-hilt's plain device,
What sign had these for prince or clown?
Few turned, or none, to scan him twice.

Yet 't was the King of England's kings!

Green groweth the holly,
So doth the ivy.
Though winter blasts blow never so high,
Green groweth the holly.
As the holly groweth green
And never changeth hue,
So I am, ever hath been,
Unto my lady true.
As the holly groweth green
With ivy all alone
When flowers cannot be seen
And greenwood leaves be gone,

Now unto my lady
Promise to her I make,
From all other only
To her I me betake.

Adieu, mine own lady,
Adieu, my special

That man is truly great, and he alone
Who venerates, of present things or past
The absolute only,—is the liege of none
Save God and truth; who, awed not by this vast
And shadowy scheme of life, but anchored fast
In love, and sitting central like the sun,
So gives his mental beams to pierce and run
Through all its secrets while his days may last.
While thus progressive, little faith has he
For mysteries, till, sounding them, he hear
The gathered tones of their stirred depths agree

Because I sought it far from men,
In deserts and alone,
I found it burning overhead,
The jewel of a Throne.

Because I sought--I sought it so
And spent my days to find--
It blazed one moment ere it left
The blacker night behind.

We be the Gods of the East--
Older than all--
Masters of Mourning and Feast--
How shall we fall?

* * * * *

This I saw when the rites were done,
And the lamps were dead and the Gods alone,
And the grey snake coiled on the altar stone--

Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home;
Thou art my friend, and I'm not thine.
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;
But now, proud world! I'm going home.

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
To supple Office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;

Good-by, proud world, I'm going home,
Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine;
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-by to Flattery's fawning face,
To Grandeur, with his wise grimace,
To upstart Wealth's averted eye,
To supple Office low and high,
To crowded halls, to court, and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,

To touch the glove upon her tender hand,
To watch the jewel sparkle in her ring,
Lifted my heart into a sudden song
As when the wild birds sing.

To touch her shadow on the sunny grass,
To break her pathway through the darkened wood,
Filled all my life with trembling and tears
And silence where I stood.

I watch the shadows gather round my heart,
I live to know that she is gone –
Gone gone for ever, like the tender dove
That left the Ark alone.

O Thou, who's infinite in space,
Alive in ever-moving matter,
Eternal in the flow of time,
God faceless, with a trinity of faces!
Soul unified and omnipresent,
Who needs no place or reason,
Whom none can ever comprehend,
Whose being permeates all things,
Encompassing, creating, guarding,
Thou, called by us God.

Although a great mind might contrive
To fix the ocean's depths,
To count the sands, the rays of stars,
Thou can't be summed or fixed!
Enlightened souls who have emerged