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Out Of The East

by John Frederick Freeman

When man first walked upright and soberly

Reflecting as he paced to and fro,

And no more swinging from wide tree to tree,

Or sheltered by vast boles from sheltered foe,

Or crouched within some deep cave by the sea

Stared at the noisy waste of water's woe

Where the earth ended, and far lightning died

Splintered upon the rigid tideless tide;

When man above Time's cloud lifted his head

And speech knew, and the company of speech,

And from his alien presence wild beasts fled

And birds flew wary from his arrow's reach,

And cattle trampling the long meadow weed

Did sentry in the wind's path set; when each

Horn, hoof, claw, sting and sinew against man

Was turned, and the old enmity began;

When, following, beneath the hand of kings

Moved men their parting ways, and some passed on

To forest refuge, some by dark-browed springs,

And some to high remoter pastures won,

And some o'er yellow deserts spread their wings,

Thinning with time and thirst and so were gone

Forgotten; when between each wandered host

The seldom travellers faltered and were lost;--

In those old days, upon the soft dew'd sward

That held its green between the thicket's cloud,

Walked two men musing ere the wide moon poured

Her full-girthed weightless flood. And one was bowed

With years past knowledge, and his face was scored

Where light or deep had every long year ploughed--

Pain, labour, present peril, distant dread

Scored in his brow and bending his shagged head.

Palsy his frame shook as a harsh wind shakes

Complaining reeds fringing a frozen river;

His eye the aspect had of frozen lakes

Whereunder the foiled waters swirl and quiver;

His voice the deep note that the north wind takes

Drawn through bare beechwoods where forlorn birds shiver--

Deep and unfaltering. A younger man

Listened, while warmer currents in him ran.

"Was not my son even as myself to me,

As you to him showed his own life again?

Now he is dead, and all I looked to see

In him removes to you--less near and plain,

Confused with other blood; and what will be

I groping cannot tell, and grope in vain.

For men have turned to other ways than mine:

Yourself are less fulfilment than a sign,

"Sign of a changing world. And change I fear.

I have seen old and young like brief gnats die,

And have faced death by plague and flood and spear:

I have seen mine own familiar people lie

In generations reaped; and near and near

Age leads on Death--I hear his husky sigh.

Yet Death I fear not, but these clouds of change

Sweeping the old firm world with new and strange.

"Son of my son, to whom the world shines new,

You are strange to me for whom the world is old.

Your thoughts are not my thoughts, and unto you

The past, sole warmth for me, is void and cold.

Another passion pours your spirit through,

Another faith has leapt upon the fold

And wrestles with the ancient faith. 'And lo!'

Lightly men say, 'Even the gods come and go!'"

He paused awhile in pacing and hung still,

Amid the thickening shades a darker shade.

Down the steep valley from the barren hill

A herd of deer with antlered leader made

Brief apparition. Mist brimmed up until

Only the great round heights yet solid stayed--

Then they too changed to spectral, and upon

The changing mist wavered, and were gone....

"Standing to-day your father's grave beside,

I knew my heart with his was covered there;

O, more than flesh did in the cold earth hide--

My past, his promise. There was none to care

Save for the body of a prince that died

As princes die; there was none whispered, 'Where

Moves now among us his unburied part?

What breast beats with the pulses of his heart?'

"--Vain thoughts are these that but a dying man

Searches among the dark caves of his mind!

But as I stood, the very wind that ran

Between the files breathed more than common wind,

As though the gods of men when Time began,

Fathers of fathers of old humankind,

Startled, heard now the changeful future knock;

And their lament it was from rock to rock

"Tossed with the wind's long echo ... O, speak not,

Nor tell me with my loss I am so dazed,

That my tongue speaks unfaithfully my thought;

That you, you too, within his shadow raised,

Stand bare now, wanting all you held or thought,

By aimless love or prisoned grief amazed.

Tell me not: let me out of silence speak,

Or let me still my thoughts in silence break."

And so both stood, and not a word to say,

By silence overborne, until at last

The young man breathed, "Look how the end of day

Falls heavily, as though the earth were cast

Into a shapeless soundless pit, where ray

Of heavenly light never the verge has past.

Yet will the late moon's light anon shine here,

And then gray light, and then the sun's light clear.

"Sire, 'twas my father died, and like night's pit

Soundless and shapeless yawn my orphaned years.

And yet I know morn comes and brings with it

Old tasks again, and new joys, hopes and fears.

Or sword or plough these fingers will find fit,

And morrows end with other cries and tears,

With women's arms and children's voices and

The sacred gods blessing the new-sown land.

"But look, upon your beard the dew is bright,

Chill is the winter fall: let us go in."

Then moved they slowly downward till a light

Shining the door-post and thonged door between

Showed the square Prince's House. Out of the night

They passed the sudden rubied warmth within.

Curled shadowy by the wall a servant slept:

A sleepy hound from the same corner crept.

Soon were they couched. The young man fell asleep;

While the old Prince drowsing uneasily,

Tossing on the crest of agitations deep,

Dreamed waking, waking dreamed. Then memory

The unseen hound, did from her corner creep

Into his bosom and stirred him with her sigh

Soundless. And he arose and answering pressed

Her beloved head yet closer to his breast....

Happy those years returned when first he strode

Beside his father's knees, or climbed and felt

The warm strength of those arms, or singing rode

High on his shoulders; or in winter pelt

Of dread beasts wrapt, set as his father showed

Snares in the frosty grass, and at dawn knelt

Beside the snares, and shouting homeward tore,

Winged with such pride as seldom manhood wore.

--How many, many, many years ago!

There was no older man now walked the earth.

Had all those years sunk to a bitter glow,

Like the fire lingering yet upon the hearth?

Ah, he might warm his hands there still, and so

Must warm his heart now in this wintry dearth,

Till the reluming sunken fire should give

Warmth to his ageing wits and bid him live.

Even this house! It was his father told

How in the days half lost in icy time

Men first forsook their wormy caves and cold

To build where the wind-footed cattle climb;

And noise of labour broke the silence old

By such unbroken since the sparkling prime

Of the world's spring. And so the house arose,

A builded cave, perpetual as the snows

On the remotest summits of the range

Hemming the north. Then house by house appeared

'Neath valley-eaves, and change following on change

Unnoted tamed earth's shaggy front. Men heard

Strange voices syllabling with accents strange,

By travellers breathed who, startled, paused and feared

Seeing the smoke of habitations curled

Above this hollow of an unrumoured world.

Startled, they paused and spoke by doubtful sign,

Answered by hesitating sign, until

Moved one with aspect fearless and benign,

And met one fearless, while all else hung still.

And then was welcome, rest, and meat and wine

And intercourse of uncouth word, as shrill

Voice with deep voice was mingled. So they stayed

And to astonished eyes strange arts betrayed.

By them the oarage of the wind was taught,

And how the quick tail steered the cockled boat.

They netted fruitful streams, and smiling brought

Their breaking wickers home, too full to float.

And opening the earth's rich womb they wrought

Arms from the sullied ore; and labouring smote

The mountain's bosom, till a path was seen

Stony amid the flushed snow and flushed green.

Then first upon earth's wave the silver share

Floated, by the teamed oxen drawn; then first

Were seed-time rites, and harvest rites when bare

The cropped fields lay, and gathered tumult--nurst

Long in the breasts of men that laboured there--

Now in the broad ease of fulfilment burst;

And when the winter tasks failed in days chill,

Weaving of bright-hued yarn, and chattering shrill;

And the loved tones of music sounded sweet

Unwonted, when the new-stopped pipe was heard

Rising and falling, and the falling feet

Of sudden dancers. And old men were stirred

With old men's memories of ancient heat

When youth sang in their bosoms like a bird....

Sweet that divine musician, Memory,

Fingering her many-reeded melody.

Then as he stared into the wasting glow

And watched the fire faint in the whitening wood,

Came starker shadows moving vast and slow,

And echoes of wild strife and smell of blood,

Twitching of slain men, cries of parting woe,

Bruised bodies ghastly in the mountain flood;

Burials and burnings, triumph with terrors blent,

And widowed languors and night-long lament.

Like seeds long buried, these dead memories

Upthrust in their new green and spread to flower:

An eager child against his father's knees

Leaning, he had listened many an evening hour.

Now these remote reworded histories

Entangled with his own renewed their power,

Breathing an antique virtue through his mind,

As through dense yew boughs breathes the undying wind.

Sighing, he rose up softly. On the wall

A dark shape shambled aimless to and fro;

Head bent, eyes inward-seeing, rugged, tall,

Himself a shadow moved with musings slow

Amid his cumbered past, and heard sweet call

Of mother voice, and mother folk, and flow

Of gentle and proud speech and tender laughter,

Story and song, fault and forgiveness after;

And a voice graver, gentler than a man

Might hear from any but a woman beloved,

Stilling and awakening the blood that ran

Like ocean tide, as neared she or removed ...

Faded that music. Then a voice began

Paining within his heart, yet unreproved;

For dear the anguish is that steals upon

A father's spirit lamenting his lost son.

--The latest born and latest lost of those

Of his strong and her gentle being born.

By earthquake, pestilence, by human foes

Long were they dead; and yet not all forlorn

He grieved, for at his side the youngest rose

Bright as a willow gilded by dewy morn....

Felled now the tree, silent that music, still

The motion that did all the vale-air fill.

Once more they bore the body from the hunt

Where he alone had died. Once more he heard

The wail and sigh, and saw once more their front

Of drooping grief; once more the wailing stirred

Old hounds to baying wilder than was wont;

Fell once more like slow, sullen rain each word

Reluctant, telling to his senses strayed,

How while the gods drowsed and men hung afraid.

Slain was the Prince unwary by the paw

Of a springing beast that died in giving death.

Again the featureless torn face he saw,

The ribboned bosom emptied of warm breath;

Again the circle sudden hush'd with awe,

And smothered moaning heard the hush beneath.

Again, again, and every night again,

Vision renewed and voice recalled in vain.

Again those dear and lamentable rites

Within the winter stems of forest shade,

The pile, the smokeless flame, the thousand lights,

The one light that in all the thousand played;

Deep burthened voices while, around the heights

Lifting, young trebles their wild echo made;

Then the returning torches at the pyre

Lit, when the eye glowed faint within the fire.

* * * * *

Even as a man that by slow steps may climb

An unknown mountain path with tired tread

By ice-fringed brook and close herb white with rime,

Sees sudden far below a strange land spread

Immense; so from his lonely crag of Time

The Prince, his eye bewildered and adread,

Gazed at the vast, with mist and storm confused,

Cloud-racked, and changing even while he mused.

Ending were the old wise and stable ways.

Adventurers into distant lands had fared,

From distant lands adventurers with gaze

Proud and unenvying on his kingdom stared,

And sojourning had shaken quiet days

With restless knowledge, and strange worship reared

Of foreign altars, idols, prayers and songs

And sacrifice as to such gods belongs.

And all unsatisfied his people grown

Would move from this rejected mountain range

By yearlong valley journeys slowly down,

Sun-following, till surfeited with change,

Mid idle pastures pitched or fabled town,

Subdued to climes and kings and customs strange,

At length their very name should die away

And all their remnant be a vague "Men say."

"Men say!" he sighed, and from that lofty verge

Of inward seeing drooped his doubtful sight.

Sweet was it from such reverie to emerge

And breathe once more the thoughtless air of night,

And watch the fire-slave through fresh billets urge

The sleeping flame, until the vivid light

And toothed shadows wearied.... And then crept

The hounds a little nearer, and all slept.

* * * * *

But the young man still lay in quiet sleep,

Or half-sleep, and a dream-born cloud enwreathed

With memories, hopes and longings hidden deep

In his flown mind. Another air he breathed,

Saw from an unsubstantial mountain sweep

In purest light, soon in low shadow sheathed,

Semblance of faint-known faces, or beloved

Daily-acquainted still, or long removed.

Even as sacred fire in fennel stalks

Through windy ways is borne and densest night,

Till where the outpost shivering sentry walks

Beating the minutes into hours, the light

Touches the guarded pile and, flaring, balks

Beasts padding near and each unvisioned sprite

By old dread apprehended; and new gladness

Shakes in the village prone in winter sadness:--

So through the young man's dream the kingly flame

In his own breast was undiminished borne.

And other peoples catching from his fame

A noble heat, in neighbouring lands forlorn,

Would glow with new power and the ancient name

Bless, that had brightened through their narrow morn.

And purer yet and steadier would pass on

The sacred flame to son and son and son.

Or with contracting mind he saw the host

Of mountain warriors banded, moving down

Untrodden ways, as on young buds a frost

Falls, and the spring lies stiff. The air was sown

With strife, the fields with blood, the night with ghost

Wandering by ghost, and wounded men were strown

Surprised, unweaponed; and chill air congealed

Each hurt, and with the blood their breath was sealed.

And the loved tones of music sounded fierce

When the returning files with aspect proud

Approached, and brandished their rich trophied spears.

Sweet the pipes' spearlike music, sweet and loud,

And music of smitten arms was sweet to tears;

Sweet the dance unto smiling gods new vowed,

Sweet the recounting song and choral cries,

And age's quaverings and girls' envious sighs.

--So of himself, a father-king, he dreamed,

Holding an equal nation in his eye.

O with what golden points the future gleamed!

Rustled the years like laden mule-trains by,

Each with its burthen of old time redeemed....

Splendour on splendour poured, and so would lie

Unnoted and unmeasured:--metals, herds,

Distant-sought wonders, strange growths, beasts and birds.

Within the summer of that splendid shade

Might men live happy and nought left to fear,

Or if an antique restless spirit played

Fretful within their bones, and change drew near

Drumming wild airs, and another music made,

A father-king, speaking assured and clear,

Bidding them follow he would lead them forth

Through the yet undiscovered frowning north.

And the last fire on the warm stones would burn,

And the smoke linger on the mountain skies.

And seeing, they would muse yet of return

And then forget their sadness in the cries

Confused of the great caravan; and so turn

Towards the next sun-setting and the next sunrise

Many and many a day and wind and wind

Through foreign earth, as a dream through the mind.

Flowing on with the changes of its thought.

And doubtful kings entreating them to stay

Would sleep the easier when they lingered not;

And sullen tribes menacing would make way,

And broad slow rivers in their tide be caught,

And the long caravan o'er the ford all day

And all day and all day pass; while the tide slept

In sluggish shallows, or through marsh-reeds crept.

So would they on and on, with death and birth

For wayfellows and nightly stars for guide,

While seasons bloomed and faded on the earth,

And jealous gods their wandering gods would chide.

Until, weary of endless going forth

Dark-locust-like, the old fret would subside,

And young men with aged men and women cry,

"In this full-rivered pasture let us lie!

"Here let us lie, and wanderings be at rest!"

Midmost a cedar grove high sacrifice

Needs then be made, that gods be manifest;

And while the smoke spread in long twilit skies,

"Here let us lie, and wanderings be at rest,"

Would old men breathe repeated between sighs.

"In this green world and cool," would mothers say,

"Rest we, nor with thin babes yet longer stray."

--So stealing from the mind of the old King

Exhausted, into the sleeping young man's brain

Crept the same dream and lifted on new wing

And took from his swift passions a new stain,

Sanguine and azure, and first fluttering

Rose then on easy vans that bore again

The sleeper past his common thought's confine:--

So borne, so soaring, in that air divine,

He saw his people stayed, their journeys ended....

There should they, no more fretful, dwell for ever

In the full-nourished pasture where untended

Herds multiplied, and famine threatened never,

And where high border-hills glittered with splendid

Sparse-covered veins washed by the hill-born river.

So stead by stead arose, and men there moved

Satisfied, and no more vain longings roved.

Again the silver plough gleamed in the sod,

And seed from old fields slept in furrows new.

Then when Spring's rain and sun together trod

And interweaved swift steps the meadow through,

Old rites revived; they bore the shapen god

With green stalks and first-budded boughs, and drew

Together youth and age. And sowers leapt

High o'er the seed in earth's cold bosom wrapt:--

So in the golden-hued and burning hours

Of harvest, leapt on high the full-eared corn.

Friendly to pious hands those imaged Powers

Of rain and sun. And when the grain was borne

By oxen trailing tangled straws and flowers,

With leaves and dying blossoms on each horn,

Friendly the gods commingling in the shades

Of moon and torch and smoke-delaying glades.

Fell slowly sunset; the starred evening cool

Drooped round as mid his people the king rode,

Blessing and blessed, and in the faithful pool

Of their old loves his clear reflection glowed

Like summer's golden moon:--in wise and fool,

Noble and mean, accustomed reverence showed

Clear-shining; so he reached the unbarred hall

Where lamps, lords, servitors flashed festival,

Remembering old journeys and their end.

Bright-throned he sat there, with those lords around

Snow-polled, co-eval, as with friends their friend

Feasting. Arose at length the awaited sound

Of bardic chanting, bidding their thoughts descend

Into the chamber where the Past lay bound,

Wanting but music's finger; so upspringing,

The Past stormed all their minds in that loud singing.

And strangers, furred and tawny, seated there,

Far travellers from the sunrise, looking on

The feasting and the splendour, and with ear

Uncertain listening to the solemn tone

Of most dear Memory, envied all and sware

A sudden fealty. But the bard sang on

While silver beakers brimmed untouched; and darkened

The proud remembering eyes of men that hearkened.

Then came once more those strangers leading long

Migration of their subject folk. They stayed

And medley'd and were mingled, and their throng

Melted in his like snows, and so were made

One with them, and forgot their useless tongue,

Nor now their ancient bloody worship paid

To painted gods:--name, language, story died

When their last faithless exile parting sighed.

So year on year, century on century

In his imagination of delight

Followed, in a new world all innocency

And simpleness, and made for beings bright,

Where man to man was friend, unfearful, free,

And natural griefs alone darkened their night,

And natural joys as the wide air were common,

And kindness was the bond of all kin human.

* * * * *

--When the loved reeds of music sounded clear

From birds' breasts quivering in tall woodland trees

That rustled leafless in the winter air,

And with morn's new voice shrilled the western breeze:

Folding her wings the dream crept from his ear

To hang where bats drowse until daylight dies.

Then he from sleep's dear vanity awaking

Watched a sole sunbeam the roof-shadows raking.