Page:Poems Dorr.djvu/352

Hath been most potent to command.
Yet I—I will not bid thee stay.
Go, if thou must, and find thy clay!"

Then his long journeyings began,
And still his hope his steps outran.
O'er desert sands he came and went;
He crossed a mighty continent;
Plunged into forests dark and lone;
In jungles heard the panther's moan;
Climbed the far mountains' lofty heights;
Watched alien stars through weary nights;
While more than once, on trackless seas,
His white sails caught the eddying breeze.
Yet all his labor was for nought,
And never found he what he sought,
Or far or near. The finer clay
But mocked his eager search alway.

Ofttimes he came, with weary feet,
Back to the home so still and sweet
Where his fair wife, Hermione,
Dwelt with her children at her knee;
But never once his eager hand
Thrilled the mute clay with high command.
One day she spoke: "O Valdemar,
Cease from your wanderings wide and far!
Life is not long. Why waste it, then,
Chasing false fires through marsh and fen?
Mould your fair statue while you may;
High purpose sanctifies the clay."

He answered her, "My dream must wait,
Fortune will aid me, soon or late!
Perhaps the clay I may not find—