 | The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill |  |
301
VII
Æons ago a rock crashed downFrom a mountain's crown,
Where a tempest's tread
Crumbled it from its hold.
Ages dawn and in turn grow old:
The rock lies still and dead.
Flames come and floods come,
Sea rolls this mountain crumb
To a pebble, in its play;
Till at the last man came to be,
And a thousand generations passed away.
Then from the bed of a brook one day
A boy with the heart of a king
Fitted the stone to his shepherd sling,
And a giant fell, and a royal race was free.
Not out of any cloud or sky
Will thy good come to prayer or cry.
Let the great forces, wise of old,
Have their whole way with thee,
Crumble thy heart from its hold,
Drown thy life in the sea.
And æons hence, some day,
The love thou gavest a child,
The dream in a midnight wild,
The word thou wouldst not say—
Or in a whisper no one dared to hear,
Shall gladden the earth and bring the golden year.
| The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill | |