Proem

We found him in that Far-away that yet to us seems near —
We vagrants of but yesterday when idlest youth was here, —
When lightest song and laziest mirth possessed us through and through,
And all the dreamy summer-earth seemed drugged with morning dew:

When our ambition scarce had shot a stalk or blade indeed:
Yours, — choked as in the garden-spot you still deferred to " weed " :
Mine, — but a pipe half-cleared of pith — as now it flats and whines
In sympathetic cadence with a hiccough in the lines.

Ay, even then — O timely hour! — the High Gods did confer
In our behalf: — And, clothed in power, lo, came their Courier —
Not winged with flame nor shod with wind, — but ambling down the pike,
Horseback, with saddle-bags behind, and guise all human-like.

And it was given us to see, beneath his rustic rind,
A native force and mastery of such inspiring kind,
That half unconsciously we made obeisance. — Smiling, thus
His soul shone from his eyes and laid its glory over us.

...

Though, faring still that Far-away that yet to us seems near,
His form, through mists of yesterday, fades from the vision here,
Forever as he rides, it is in retinue divine, —
The hearts of all his time are his, with your hale heart and mine.
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