The music-lesson of Confucius, And Other Poems

THERE went a rider on a roan,
By rock and hill and all alone,
And asked of men these questions three:
‘Who may the greatest miller be?
‘What baker baked ere Adam's birth?
‘And what washer washes the most on earth?’

And still the rider went his way
By cities old and castles gray,
In morning red or moonlight dim,
Unto the sea where ships do swim;
And yet no man could answer him.

He reined his horse upon the sand:
‘There is no lord in any land
Can answer right my questions three:—
Old fisher sitting by the sea,
Can'st tell me where those craftsmen be?’

Then spoke the fisher of the mere:
‘The earth is dark, the water clear,
And where the sea against the land
Is grinding rocks and shells to sand,
I see the greatest miller's hand.

'And the baker who baked ere the morn
When Adam was in Eden born,
Is Heat, that God made long before,
Which dries the sand upon the shore,
And hardens it to rock once more.

‘And the water falling night and day
Is the washer, washing all away;
All melts in time before the rain,
The mountain sinks into the plain:
So the great world comes and goes again.’

‘Thou, Silver Beard, hast spoken well,
With wisdom most commendable;
So bind thee with this golden band!’
The light was red upon the strand,
The rider's road lay dark in-land.

University of Virginia Library

THE RIDDLER.