“A frail detached and wandering thing

 Torn loose from the blossomy life of spring?

 “And this is man, the myriad one,

 Dust’s flower and time’s ephemeron.

 “And I who have followed the wander-list

 For a glimpse of beauty, a wraith in the mist,

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 “Shall be spilt at last and return to peace,

 As dust which the hands of the wind release.

 “This is my solace and my reward,

 Who have drained life’s dregs from a broken shard.”

 Wise and grave was the water face,

 A youth grown man in a little space;

 While the wayworn face by the river side

 Grew gentler-lipped and shadowy-eyed;

 For he heard like a sea-horn summoning him

 That sound from the world’s end vast and dim,

 Where the river went wandering out so far

 Through a gate in the mountain left ajar,

 The sea birds love and the land birds flee,

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