| |
| ONCE more this Autumn-earth is ripe, | |
| Parturient of another type. | |
| |
| While with the Past old nations merge | |
| His foot is on the Future’s verge. | |
| |
| They watch him, as they huddle, pent, | 5 |
| Striding a spacious continent, | |
| |
| Above the level desert’s marge | |
| Looming in his aloofness large. | |
| |
| No flower with fragile sweetness graced— | |
| A lank weed wrestling with the waste; | 10 |
| |
| Pallid of face and gaunt of limb, | |
| The sweetness withered out of him; | |
| |
| Sombre, indomitable, wan, | |
| The juices dried, the glad youth gone. | |
| |
| A little weary from his birth, | 15 |
| His laugh the spectre of a mirth, | |
| |
| Bitter beneath a bitter sky, | |
| To Nature he has no reply. | |
| |
| Wanton, perhaps, and cruel. Yes, | |
| Is not his sun more merciless? | 20 |
| |
| So drab and neutral is his day, | |
| He finds a splendour in the grey, | |
| |
| And from his life’s monotony | |
| He draws a dreary melody. | |
| |
| When earth so poor a banquet makes | 25 |
| His pleasures at a gulp he takes; | |
| |
| The feast is his to the last crumb: | |
| Drink while he can…the drought will come. | |
| |
| His heart a sudden tropic flower, | |
| He loves and loathes within an hour. | 30 |
| |
| Yet you who by the pools abide, | |
| Judge not the man who swerves aside; | |
| |
| He sees beyond your hazy fears; | |
| He roads the desert of the years; | |
| |
| Rearing his cities in the sand, | 35 |
| He builds where even God has banned; | |
| |
| With green a continent he crowns, | |
| And stars a wilderness with towns; | |
| |
| With paths the distances he snares; | |
| His gyves of steel the great plain wears. | 40 |
| |
| A child who takes a world for toy, | |
| To build a nation or destroy, | |
| |
| His childish features frozen stern, | |
| His manhood’s task he has to learn— | |
| |
| From feeble tribes to federate | 45 |
| One white and peace-encompassed State. | |
| |
| But if there be no goal to reach?… | |
| The track lies open, dawns beseech! | |
| |
| Enough that he lay down his load | |
| A little farther on the road. | 50 |
| |
| So, toward undreamt-of destinies | |
| He slouches down the centuries. | |
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