 | A Lost Epic and Other Poems |  |
Years had fled,
Ay, forty years of florid life, since first
He planned this large majestic epopee;
And years must still be spent in search and thought;
And years, perchance, in waiting, sail outspread,
To catch the ever-imminent breeze of song;
Years on the voyage through that sea of dreams;
Years—and the man who had thought and wrought, too rapt
To note the years, forgot that he was old!
Small wonder! For his eye, grown keen to scan
The cosmic cycles from the nebular dawn,
Was dulled to human epochs, mortal dates.
Why, Rome was thatched and fenced but yesterday!
The Pyramids were reared—a year ago?
Nay, mark, those fiery-blossomed weeds have flamed
Along the furrows of an Aryan plough;
These ripples wash the self-same water-line
As when the dwellers on the reed-roofed piles
Moulded clay crescents of the holy Moon!
Ay, forty years of florid life, since first
He planned this large majestic epopee;
And years must still be spent in search and thought;
And years, perchance, in waiting, sail outspread,
To catch the ever-imminent breeze of song;
Years on the voyage through that sea of dreams;
Years—and the man who had thought and wrought, too rapt
To note the years, forgot that he was old!
Small wonder! For his eye, grown keen to scan
The cosmic cycles from the nebular dawn,
Was dulled to human epochs, mortal dates.
Why, Rome was thatched and fenced but yesterday!
6
Nay, mark, those fiery-blossomed weeds have flamed
Along the furrows of an Aryan plough;
These ripples wash the self-same water-line
As when the dwellers on the reed-roofed piles
Moulded clay crescents of the holy Moon!
| A Lost Epic and Other Poems | |