Classic Poem

These fading smoke-wreaths hold them all—
The dawns and dreams gone by,
The lights and shadows on the wall,
The gleams of open sky,

And all the vague, elusive things
That haunt the halls of life
With sense of vast o'ershadowing wings
And rumourings of strife.

How this small bowl of ruddy fire
Can people all the room
With strangers from the realm Desire,
Beyond the gulfs of Doom,

Till all about me in the dusk
The silence is astir
With gleam of steel and breath of musk
And frankincense and myrrh,

While dream, adown the shifting breath
Of myth and love and war,
Lures from the hollow vault of death
Wild hearts that beat no more;

And Roland's bugle, through the night
Sends forth its far weird fall
Where weltering and dense the fight
Goes over Roncevalles.

Joan of Arc, and Héloise,
Swan Helen, fatal star,
And Dante's deep-eyed Beatrice
Go through the dusk afar;

King Arthur of the weary quest,
Excalibur in hand,
Flashes, where 'er is sorest prest
His lion-hearted band;

The joy of battle fierce and strong
Drifts through the deathly bars
While clash and swing of sword and song
Clang up among the stars,

And strange wild sagas of the North
Pulse fire through all my veins
As where across the sky go forth
The Weird Light's shaken skeins;

Then slowly, as my pipe burns low
Enchantments pale and fade,
Till, in the ash of long ago
The last dear ghost is laid.