University of Virginia Library


183

THE DRUID.

Godlike beneath his grave divinities,
The last of all their worshippers, he stood.
The shadows of a vanished multitude
Enwound him, and their voices in the breeze
Made murmur, while the meditative trees
Reared of their strong fraternal branches rude
A temple meet for prayer. What blossoms strewed
The path between Life's morning hours and these?
What lay beyond the darkness? He alone
The sunshine and the shadow and the dew
Had shared alike with leaf, and flower, and stem:
Their life had been his lesson; and from them
A dream of immortality he drew,
As in their fate foreshadowing his own.