PART IV.
1.
“And have I been living, then, all this while
In a blue land—really and truly blue?”
The exile sigh'd with a sorrowful smile,
“And never dream'd of it? Can it be true?
Never dream'd of it! All seem'd grey,
Or dusty white, with a patch or two
Of lean green grass, or raw red clay,
To enliven the rest. But blue?. . . blue?. . . blue?”
2.
And the man fell into a reverie.
O'er his cerulean home a brood
Of etherial clouds was floating free.
And they sign'd to him, and he understood.
3.
“As the waves that are clad in the azure of ocean,
So clad in the azure of heaven are we.
As thou movest, we move, with an unseen motion;
And, where thou followest, there we flee.
For the children of Never and Ever we are,
And our home is Beyond, and our name is Afar.
“Never to us shall thy steps attain,
Nor ever to thee may we draw nearer.
But, if fair in thy vision our forms remain,
Still love us, the farther we are, the dearer,
And be thou ours, as thine we are,
For what were the near, were it not for the far?
“Look above, and below—to the heaven, the plain!
The low and the level, they disappear.
The aloof and the lofty alone remain.
And, for ever present tho' never near,
Whilst ours are the summit, the sky, and the star,
Still thine is the beauty of all that we are.”
4.
All this, in his much-loved mountain-tongue,
The man's heart, hearing it, understood.
And he thought of the old old days, so young!
But he spake not: only, let fall a flood
Of passionate notes of admiration,
Over his wan cheek silently sweeping.
As when, in their sorrow and desolation,
At the death of the summer, the hills are weeping.
5.
Then the folk about him, who knew not aught
Of that mountain language, shook the head.
“How he taketh his sentence to heart!” each thought.
And “Courage! the times must mend,” they said.
