Classic Poem

Why does all of sharp and new
That our modern days can brew
Culminate in you?

This chaotic age's wine
You have drunk—and now decline
Any anodyne.

On the broken walls you stand,
Peering toward some stony land
With eye-shading hand.

Is it lonely as you peer?
Do you never miss, in fear,
Simple things and dear—

Half-remembered, left behind?
Or are backward glances blind
Here where the wind

Round the outposts sweeps and cries—
And each distant hearthlight dies
To your restless eyes? …

I too stand where you have stood;
And the fever fills my blood
With your cruel mood.

Yet some backward longings press
On my heart: yea, I confess
My soul's heaviness.

Me a homesick tremor thrills
As I dream how sunlight fills
My familiar hills.

Into that profound unknown,
Where the earthquake forces strown
Shake each pilèd stone,

Look I; and exultance smites
Me with joy; the splintered heights
Call me with fierce lights.

But a piety still dwells
In my bones; my spirit knells
Solemnly farewells

To safe halls where I was born—
To old haunts I leave forlorn
For this perilous morn. . . .

Yet I come; I cannot stay;
Yours and mine the terrible day;
Yours and mine the unknown way;

Where you go, I go. But me
Mock not lightly. I come free—
But with agony.