Byway, ambushed with the dark, Byway, where the ears may hark; Live and fierce when day is done, You, that do without the Sun:-- What's this game you bring to nought?-- Muttering like a thing distraught, Reckoning like a simpleton? (Since the hearing must be brief,-- Living or a dying thief!) Cobbled with the anguished stones That the thoroughfare disowns; Stones they gave you for your bread Of the disinherited! Where the Towers of Hunger loom, Crowding in the dregs of doom; Where the lost sky peering through Sees no more the grudging grass,-- Only this mud-mirrored blue, Like some shattered looking-glass. (_Under, with the sorry reaping! Underneath the stones of weeping, For the Dark to have in keeping._) Byway, you, so foully marred; You, whose sodden walls and scarred, See no light, but only where Fevered lamps are set to stare In the eyes of such despair! Tell me--as a Byway can-- Was this Beggar once a Man? '_Rich man--Poor man--Beggar man--Thief!_' Like and lost as leaf and leaf. Stammering out your wrongs and shames, Must you cry their very names? Must you sob your shame, your grief? --'_Poor man--Poor man!--Beggar--Thief._' III Highway, where the Sun is wide; Byway, where the lost ones hide, Byway, where the Soul must hark, Byway, dreadful with the Dark: Can you nothing do with Man? Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief, Learns he nothing, even of grief? Must it still be all his wonder Some men soar, while some go under? He has heard, and he has seen: Make him know the thing you mean. He has prayed since time began,-- He's so curious of the Plan! He will pray you till he die, For the Whence and for the Why; Mad for wisdom--when 'tis cheaper! '_Why should my way lead me deeper? Am I, then, my Brother's keeper?_' Show him, Byway, if you can; Lest he end as he began, Rich and poor,--this beggar, Man. _But we did walk in Eden, Eden, the garden of God;-- There, where no beckoning wonder Of all the paths we trod, No choiring sun-filled vineyard, No voice of stream or bird, But was some radiant oracle And flaming with the Word!_ _Mine ears are dim with voices; Mine eyes yet strive to see The black things here to wonder at, The mirth,--the misery. Beloved, who wert with me there, How came these shames to be?-- On what lost star are we?_ _Men say: The paths of gladness By men were never trod!-- But we have walked in Eden, Eden, the garden of God._ THE FOUNDLING Beautiful Mother, I have toiled all day; And I am wearied. And the day is done. Now, while the wild brooks run Soft by the furrows--fading, gold to gray, Their laughters turned to musing--ah, let me Hide here my face at thine unheeding knee, Beautiful Mother; if I be thy son.