• I
    I saw a slowly stepping train
    Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar
    Following in files across a twilit plain
    A strange and mystic form the foremost bore
    II
    And by contagious throbs of thought
    Or latent knowledge that within me lay
    And had already stirred me, I was wrought
    To consciousness of sorrow even as they
    III
    The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes
    At first seemed man-like, and anon to change
    To an amorphous cloud of marvelous size
    At times endowed with wings of glorious range
    IV
    And this phantasmal variousness
    Ever possessed it as they drew along:
    Yet throughout all it symbolic none the less
    Potency vast and loving-kindness strong
    V
    Almost before I knew I bent
    Towards the moving columns without a word
    They growing in bulk and numbers as they went
    Struck out sick thoughts that could be overheard:
    VI
    "O man-projected Figure, of late
    Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?
    Whence came it we were tempted to create
    One whom we can no longer keep alive?
    VII
    "Framing him jealous, fierce at first
    We gave him justice as the ages rolled
    Will to bless those by circumstance accurst
    And longsuffering, and mercies manifold
    VIII
    "And tricked by our own early dream
    And need of solace, we grew self-deceived
    Our making soon our maker did we deem
    And what we had imagined, we believed
    IX
    "Till in Time's stayless stealthy swing
    Uncompromising rude reality
    Mangled the Monarch of our fashioning
    Who quavered, sank, and now has ceased to be
    X
    "So, toward our myth's oblivion
    Darkling and languid-lipped, we creep and grope
    Sadder than those who wept in Babylon
    Whose Zion was a still abiding hope
    XI
    "How sweet it was in years far hied
    To start the wheels of day with trustful prayer
    To lie down liegely at the eventide
    And feel a blest assurance he was there
    XII
    "And who or what shall fill his place?
    Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyes
    For some fixed star to stimulate their pace
    Towards the goal of their enterprise?"
    XIII
    Some in the background then I saw
    Sweet women, youths, men, all incredulous
    Who chimed as one: "This figure is of straw,
    This requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!"
    XIV
    I could not prop their faith, and yet
    Many I had known: with all I sympathized
    And though struck speechless, I did not forget
    That what was mourned for, I too once had prized
    XV
    Still, how to bear such a loss I deemed
    The insistent question for each animate mind
    And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed
    A pale yet positive gleam low down behind
    XVI
    Whereof, to lift the general night
    A certain few who stood aloof had said
    "See you upon the horizon that small light,
    Swelling somewhat?" Each mourner shook his head
    XVII
    And they composed a crowd of whom
    Some were right good, and many nigh the best...
    Thus dazed and puzzled 'twixt the gleam and gloom
    Mechanically I followed with the rest