Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure | Page 3

some
bell's voice, 'twas yours I wist,
I handed up to winds on high
Who
wing a loftier flight than I.
But, hark! a rider leaves the vale.
CLOUD
Ah, yes, I catch the gleam of mail.
RANDOLPH
O speak again ye voicéd ghosts!
I heard afar your
cheerful boasts.
And, if I doubt not, ye are they
That here have met
me many a day.

WIND
We are they.
CLOUD, (echoing)
We are they.
But whither now doth Randolph stray,
And why the
mail, and why the steed?
RANDOLPH
This is my father's mail indeed,
Bequeathed with
message to his son:
"Stand straight in it and yield to none."
WIND
But whither off and why away?
RANDOLPH
Off to the world; I cannot stay--
That world I have so
often viewed
Here from this upper solitude--
This bulwark barring
strife and trade.
Love calls me off. I love a maid,
Loving her
silently and long,
Learning for her to hate the wrong,
Learning for her to seek the right,
To hew at sloth and faint resolve

And thoughts that round but self revolve,
And pray for grace and
virtue--wings
That bear men to the highest things,
Enwrapt and rising into light.
For her, for her, O Cloud and Wind!
I
trained my limbs and taught my mind,
Ran, wrestled, clomb, and
learned to bend
The cross-bow with each village friend;
And by my
hermit-guardian spent
The earliest dimness morning lent,
And the
faint torch that evening bore,
In science and in saintly lore,
Reading
the stars and signs of rain,
Noting each tree and herb and grain;

Each bird that flutters through the leaves,
Each beast, each fish that
green lake cleaves,
The curious deeds Devotion paints
In missals
and in lives of saints,
And every olden subtle trick
Of grammar,
logic, rhetoric.
But most on chivalry I turned
A torrent eagerness,
and burned
To hear of wrong repaired, or read
The working of
some famous deed,

Like those I dreamt that I could do
When what I
set myself was through:
Vexed lest the inward clock of fate
That
ticked "Too soon!" might tick "Too late!"
But now that dial points the

hour
When I must test my gathered power,
And leave my books
and leave my dreams
Of steeds and towers and knightly themes,
Of
tourney gay and woodland quest,
Of Perceval and Perceforest,
Of
Richard, Arthur, Charlemain,
Amadis and the Cid of Spain--
Must
leave them all and seek alone
Some grand adventure of my own.
CLOUD
Yet if you seek and cannot find
Or fail to work what you
designed,
Be it but as the steadfast sun
Who bright or dim his
course doth run,
And last doth reach as far a spot
Whether he seems
to shine or not.
RANDOLPH
The height, the fynial of my aim
Is to be worthy of
her name.
CLOUD
You mortals are a curious race--
More whirled by
passions, hot in chase
Of passions, than myself am whirled
When
tempests tug me o'er the world;
I cannot understand your ways.
We
clouds live our divinest days
Beneath great sunny depths of sky,

High above all that you think high,
Drifting through sunset's surf of
gold,
Dawn-lakes and moonlight's clear waves cold,
In realms so
distant, chill and lone,
That Love, impatient, leaves the throne
To
meditative Amity.
RANDOLPH
So would my guardian have it be,
So flowed his
constant voice to me,
Of those to make me one, he sought,
Who
watch from mountain towers of thought,
Or wandering into paths
apart
Pursue the lonely star of art.
WIND
But you would rather love and do.
Well said, so much the
wiser you!
But let your love be false as maid's,
Your every fire a
flame that fades--
A word, a smile, an easy thing
To fledge and easy
taking wing.
Kiss every lip, as tired of rest
As I am now. I'm off to
west
Good-bye, and some day when you're hot
I'll meet you cool.

CLOUD
And I should not
Delay my showers so long as this.
God
speed! Good-bye!
RANDOLPH
Good-bye.
I miss
Their wonderful companionship.
So onward seems the world to slip.

Now one glance backward firmly cast;
Thy next foot forward bears
thee past
The mountain's crest. Ah, I behold
Our reckless river
leaping bold
Down all its ledges. And I see
The castle where Elaine
must be.
Lo, in yon window sits she oft.--
From yon green maze of
willows soft
I hear our hermitage's bell.
Sweet sound, sweet many
scenes, farewell.
Elaine! Elaine!
CUJUS ANIMÆ PROPICIETUR DEUS.
A quiet, old cathedral folds apart
At Oxford, from the world of
colleges
A world of tombs, and shades them in its heart;

Contrasting with the busy knowledges
This wisdom, that they all
shall end in peace.--
"Vex you not, slaves of truth! there is release."
There every window is a monument
Emblazoned: every slab along
the pave,
Each effigy with knees devoutly bent,--
Or prone, with
folded gauntlets,--is a grave.
Unnoticed down the sands of Kronos
run:
Slow move the sombre shadows with the sun.
Hard by a Norman shaft, along the floor
A portraiture on ancient
bronze designed
In Academic hood and robes of yore,

Commemorates