Читать книгу Rubáiyát of Doc Sifers - Riley James Whitcomb - Страница 1

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.

Aye, 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 saddlebags 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.