The Roof of the World.

"Ere the first blush of morning's rose

Had reddened the eternal snows,

I plunged the pines among,

And came down thro' the forest sons

In their deep-ranked battalions

With practised steps and strong.

"Then heard I from the plateau rock

A lowing cow and a crowing cock—

Thin sounds in upper air.

And far below at the valley's end

I saw the morning smoke ascend

That showed me men were there.

"Ho! you lads, arouse, arouse!

He is descended to your house

Of whom wild legend ran.

On the roof of the world I dwelt five year,

Go, tell your master I am here

To be his serving-man.

"Ho! all you folk, I climbed above

The boundaries of hate and love.

Ho! such an one was I—

The wind it whistled to my bone.

I was alone, alone, alone

With the mountains and the sky.

"It is a timeless land and still;

The heavens slowly like a wheel

Revolve themselves around;

There are two rulers in that place;

Eternity sits throned by space;

Their law is without sound.

"Ho! you folk, such feats I did

On the world's roof the snow amid,

Ho! such an one as I—

I matched the wild goat in my race,

And underneath the long wise face

I pulled the beard awry.

"Five years I sported undismayed,

But suddenly I was afraid,

Yea, fearfully amazed.

I saw the eye of a dying hare;

Infinity was mirrored there

Ere it was wholly glazed.

"And this shall be my daily good,

To draw your water, hew your wood,

And lighten all your need;

To do your sowing and your tilling;

But to be bright and always willing,

And have no other creed."

All bronzed and bearded was his face;

He had a rapture and a grace

From living in the wild;

As he stared around and strangely spoke

He lookèd not like other folk,

But as an eager child.

The Poet and the Lily.

A poet was born in a modern time,

'Neath Saturn and his Rings,

He was a child of the world's prime,

Knew all beautiful things.

He was a child of morning and mirth,

Laughing for joy of the sun,

His nostrils drank the scent of earth

When rain is over and done.

A lily came from the winter's womb

And grew in its own sweet pride,

But the ruthless steel passed over its bloom,

And low in the dust it died.

And the poet's heart was filled with pain

That a delicate thing and rare

Should be reft of the beauty of which it was fain

And killed by the cruel share.

So he sang of the meadows white with lambs,

And life all young again,

Of the colts which gallop to their dams,

Knowing not any rein.

He sang of the spring upon the sea,

Hedges all white with may,

The year in its sweet infancy,

This our great world at play.

Of shepherds piping to their flocks

Across the fields of thyme,

Of sunlit fields above the rocks,

Where the small waves lap in rhyme.

Of glancing maids and youths their peers,

For ever young and free,

With faces fair, and in their ears

Great music of the sea.

He sang the amber moon a-sail

In an even of misty blue,

The stars which burn, the stars which pale,

The might which holds them true;

The comets in another sky

Which sweep to an unknown morn.

He sang of some vast agony

Or ever a world was born.

He sang a song like a twanging bow,

His head was full of sound

As a dark night when winds are low

And a swell comes from the ground.

He sang a song like a joyous bird

In wooded places and hilly,

While in the hearts of those that heard

Pity grew like a lily.

The Tramp.

Forth from the ill-lit tavern door

Where he had snoozed and boozed before

Stumbled his shambling feet.

A candle gave a guttering light,

And some one growled a hoarse good-night....

The Tramp was in the street.

His boots were blistered, burst and patched,

He had a mildewed hat, which matched

His green, unlovely coat.

Once, too, he caught his foot and swore,

And, tho' the night was warm, he wore

A muffler at his throat.

And as he went his two lips moved

As if he muttered songs he loved

To an old, unquiet tune;

And as he went his eyes were glazed,

Twice, too, he paused like some one dazed

And hiccoughed at the moon.

Thus thro' the empty ways he passed

Until he reached the road at last

With fields at either hand,

And in the heavens bare and bright

The moon stood high and shed her light

Upon the silent land.

And lo! hard by, a lofty rick,

No chance was there of stab or prick,

It makes a pleasant bed.

And so, within, he burrowed deep,

And then upon a fragrant heap

He laid his unclean head.

The moon was swallowed by a cloud,

A nightingale sang sweet and loud

From the middle of a wood;

From its small body swelled a strain

Which flooded all the listening plain.

It trembled as it stood.

Upon his hay the Tramp awoke,

The golden fountain never broke,

The lovely sobbing strain.

The melody of that brown bird

Awoke a delicate, prisoned chord

Within his sodden brain.

The brain of him who lived remote

And dreamed strange things he never wrote

But hoarded in his mind.

He would not kill the dreams he loved

For sake of little things that moved

The