Like Mists That Trail

Like mists that trail along the hill,
Dim playthings for the winds to toss,
We pass away, and all is still,
Our little circle suffers loss.

A newer grave is in the plot
Men set apart to hold their dead,
Another shares the common lot,
And all is said that can be said.

The days come in, the days go out,
They make the years, the years go by;
Our very name is touched with doubt,
But still the light is in the sky.

We take our fate, whatever shape
The gods may mould our fleeting breath,
And yet, like him who fought the Cape,
I cannot round this point of death.

A coward I—I dare not sing,
Of battlefields and blood and war;
Nor lay my finger on the string
That hymns the god of things that are.

My pulse is weak, I lack the strength
To grasp the force of human things,
And, being weak, I touch, at length,
With feeble fingers feebler strings.

I have no vision, I but see
The narrow range of narrow creeds,
And cannot grasp the things that be
Nor know the spirit of their needs.

I stand not on the hill; I keep
The valley, where all things are sweet
And all the winds have gentler sweep—
I leave the heights to bolder feet.

I dare not follow where they climb—
Those eager spirits in whose eyes
The thirst to solve this world and time
Far down like stricken hunger lies.

They front the light and in that light
They solve it, each within his breast;
And after all their weary fight
They put their armour off and rest.