But numb and sullen, on they go, With heavy brows and backs bent low, While their small lights beside them gleam, Flickering feebly on the stream.
Like blocks of shadow they are there. Nor ever do their eyes divine That far away beyond the mists Acrid and spongy--there exists A firmament where 'mid the night. Attractive as a loadstone, bright Prodigious planets shine.
The fishers black of that black plague, They are the lost immeasurably, Among the knells, the distance vague, The yonder of those endless plains That stretch more far than eye can see: And the damp autumn midnight rains Into their souls' monotony.
In his village grey At foot of the dykes, that encompass him With weary weaving of curves and lines Toward the sea outstretching dim, The rope-maker, visionary white. Stepping backwards along the way, Prudently 'twixt his hands combines The distant threads, in their twisting play. That come to him from the infinite.
When day is gone. Through ardent, weary evenings, yon The whirr of a wheel can yet be heard; Something by unseen hands is stirred. And parallel o'er the rakes, that trace An even space From point to point along all the way, The flaxen hemp still plaits its chain Ceaseless, for days and weeks amain. With his poor, tired fingers, nimble still. Fearing to break for want of skill The fragments of gold that the gliding light Threads through his toil so scantily-- Passing the walls and the houses by The rope-maker, visionary white, From depths of the evening's whirlpool dim, Draws the horizons in to him.
Horizons that stretch back afar. Where strife, regrets, hates, furies are: Tears of the silence, and the tears That find a voice: serenest years, Or years convulsed with pang and throe: Horizons of the long ago, These gestures of the Past they shew.
Of old--as one in sleep, life, errant, strayed Its wondrous morns and fabled evenings through; When God's right hand toward far Canaan's blue Traced golden paths, deep in the twilight shade.
Of old, 'twas life exasperate, huge and tense, Swung savage at some stallion's mane--life, fleet. With mighty lightnings flashing 'neath her feet, Upreared immensely over space immense.
Of old, 'twas life evoking ardent will; And hell's red cross and Heaven's cross of white Each marched, with gleam of steely armours' light. Through streams of blood, to heavens of victory still.