These first revealed its face and next did shroud,
While still the daylight grew, and joy thereby
Lit all the windy stretches of the sky—
Until a shadow darkened from the east
And sprang upon the ocean like a beast.
PART II
I
There was a field green and fragrant with grass and flowers, and flooded with sunlight, and the air above it throbbed with the songs of birds. It was yet morning when a great darkness spread over the earth, and out of the darkness lightning, and after the lightning fire that consumed every green thing; and the singing birds fell dying upon the blackened grass. The thunder and the flame past, but it was still dark—till a ray of light touched the field's edge and grew, little by little. Then one who listened heard—not the songs of birds again, but the flutter of broken wings.
II—THE TRAVELER
I met a traveler on the road
Whose back was bent beneath a load;
His face was worn with mortal care,
His frame beneath its burden shook,
Yet onward, restless, he did fare
With mien unyielding, fixt, a look
Set forward in the empty air
As he were reading an unseen book.
