The horses stamped and drew the lengthening chain. Three sliding years, with gently blending change, Went round 'mid work of hands, and brain, and heart. He laboured as before; though when he would, With privilege, he took from hours of toil, When nothing pressed; and read within his room, Or wandered through the moorland to the hills; There stood upon the apex of the world, With a great altar-stone of rock beneath, And looked into the wide abyss of blue That roofed him round; and then, with steady foot, Descended to the world, and worthy cares. And on the Sunday, father, daughter, son Walked to the country church across the fields. It was a little church, and plain, almost To ugliness, yet lacking not a charm To him who sat there when a little boy. And the low mounds, with long grass waving on, Were quite as solemn as great marble tombs. And on the sunny afternoons, across This well-sown field of death, when forth they came With the last psalm still lingering in their hearts, He looked, and wondered where the heap would rise That rested on the arch of his dead breast. But in the gloom and rain he turned aside, And let the drops soak through the sinking clay-- What mattered it to him? And as they walked Together home, the father loved to hear The new streams pouring from his son's clear well. The old man clung not only to the old; Nor bowed the young man only to the new; Yet as they walked, full often he would say, He liked not much what he had heard that morn. He said, these men believed the past alone; Honoured those Jewish times as they were Jews; And had no ears for this poor needy hour, That up and down the centuries doth go, Like beggar boy that wanders through the streets, With hand held out to any passer by; And yet God made it, and its many cries.