Loud as the maddened river raves in the cloven glen, Angel of rain! you laughed and leaped on the roofs of men;

And the sleepers sprang in their beds, and joyed and feared as you fell.

You struck, and my cabin quailed; the roof of it roared like a bell,

You spoke, and at once the mountain shouted and shook with brooks.

You ceased, and the day returned, rosy, with virgin looks.

And methought that beauty and terror are only one,

not two;

And the world has room for love, and death, and thun

der, and dew;

And all the sinews of hell slumber in summer air; And the face of God is a rock, but the face of the rock

is fair.

Beneficent streams of tears flow at the finger of pain; And out of the cloud that smites, beneficent rivers of rain.

VAILIMA.

XLI

AN END OF TRAVEL

ET now your soul in this substantial world

LET

Some anchor strike. Be here the body moored: This spectacle immutably from now

The picture in your eye; and when time strikes,
And the green scene goes on the instant blind,
The ultimate helpers, where your horse to-day
Conveyed you dreaming, bear your body dead.

VAILIMA.

XLII

WE uncommiserate pass into the night

From the loud banquet, and departing leave

A tremor in men's memories, faint and sweet
And frail as music. Features of our face,

The tones of the voice, the touch of the loved hand,
Perish and vanish, one by one, from earth:
Meanwhile, in the hall of song, the multitude
Applauds the new performer. One, perchance,
One ultimate survivor lingers on,

And smiles, and to his ancient heart recalls
The long forgotten. Ere the morrow die,
He too, returning, through the curtain comes,
And the new age forgets us and goes on.

XLIII

THE LAST SIGHT

ONCE more I saw him. In the lofty room,

Where oft with lights and company his tongue Was trump to honest laughter, sate attired A something in his likeness. "Look!" said one, Unkindly kind, "look up, it is your boy!" And the dread changeling gazed on me in vain.

XLIV

of

ING me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?

Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.

Mull was astern, Rum on the port,
Egg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul:
Where is that glory now?

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.

Give me again all that was there,
Give me the sun that shone!
Give me the eyes, give me the soul,
Give me the lad that's gone!

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?

Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.

Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,

All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.

XLV

TO S. R. CROCKETT

(In Reply to a Dedication)

BLOWS the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain

are flying,

Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,

Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,

My heart remembers how!

Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,
Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the homes of the silent vanished

races,

And winds, austere and pure:

Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! and to hear again the call;

Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees

crying,

And hear no more at all.

VAILIMA.

TH

XLVI

EVENSONG

HE embers of the day are red
Beyond the murky hill.

The kitchen smokes: the bed
In the darkling house is spread:
The great sky darkens overhead,
And the great woods are shrill.
So far have I been led,

Lord, by Thy will:

So far I have followed, Lord, and wondered still.

The breeze from the embalmèd land

Blows sudden toward the shore,

And claps my cottage door.

I hear the signal, Lord I understand.
The night at Thy command

Comes. I will eat and sleep and will not question

more.

VAILIMA.