Who feel the things that all men feel, And think in well-worn grooves of thought, Whose honest spirits never reel Before man's mystery, overwrought. Yet not unfaithful nor unkind, with work-day virtues surely staid, Theirs is the sane and humble mind, And dull affections undismayed. O happy people! I have seen No verse yet written in your praise, And, truth to tell, the time has been I would have scorned your easy ways. But now thro' weariness and strife I learn your worthiness indeed, The world is better for such life As stout suburban people lead. Too often have I sat alone When the wet night falls heavily, And fretting winds around me moan, And homeless longing vexes me For lore that I shall never know, And visions none can hope to see, Till brooding works upon me so A childish fear steals over me. I look around the empty room, The clock still ticking in its place, And all else silent as the tomb, Till suddenly, I think, a face Grows from the darkness just beside. I turn, and lo! it fades away, And soon another phantom tide Of shifting dreams begins to play, And dusky galleys past me sail, Full freighted on a faerie sea; I hear the silken merchants hail Across the ringing waves to me --Then suddenly, again, the room, Familiar books about me piled, And I alone amid the gloom, By one more mocking dream beguiled. And still no neared to the Light, And still no further from myself, Alone and lost in clinging night-- (The clock's still ticking on the shelf). Then do I envy solid folk Who sit of evenings by the fire, After their work and doze and smoke, And are not fretted by desire. Part III The Escape XXV. Song of the Pilgrims O Dwellers at the back of the North Wind, What have we done to you? How have we sinned Wandering the Earth from Orkney unto Ind? With many deaths our fellowship is thinned, Our flesh is withered in the parching wind, Wandering the earth from Orkney unto Ind. We have no rest. We cannot turn again Back to the world and all her fruitless pain, Having once sought the land where ye remain. Some say ye are not. But, ah God! we know That somewhere, somewhere past the Northern snow Waiting for us the red-rose gardens blow: --The red-rose and the white-rose gardens blow In the green Northern land to which we go, Surely the ways are long and the years are slow. We have forsaken all things sweet and fair, We have found nothing worth a moment's care Because the real flowers are blowing there. Land of the Lotus fallen from the sun, Land of the Lake from whence all rivers run, Land where the hope of all our dreams is won!