70 THE NEOLITH 



Does he chill when the snowdrift is clogged on the frozen 



ground? 

 Does he thrill to the shout of the stream, or the bay of the 



hound, 

 Or heed the sad curlew's cry and the brown snipe bleating 



his bleat? 



Nay, for nothing lies under the grass but the buried stones, 

 Or mayhap a primeval crock, or a fleck of red rust ; 

 For the hero is earth of the earth, and its dust is his dust, 

 And his flesh is the flesh of the peat, and its bones are his 

 very bones. 



That master of men is ascended, for joy or for bane, 



And life after life hath he lived and relinquished since then 



In the heather and herbage and birds, in the beetles and foxes 



and men, 

 Each in their turn sprung of earth, each in their turn earth 



again. 



Yesterday clad with great thews, that builded a chieftain of 



might ; 



To-day where the bluebells and ferns and the starry tormentil 

 Spread light by the auburn beck and loveliness on the hill ; 

 To-morrow a moorman's fire at the fall of a winter's night. 



And the aura, so azure clear, that is running above the red 

 Was the glow of a savage heart imprisoned within the brand ; 

 And the warmth on your hand was the sun on a stone-man's 



hand 

 In the far-off, wonderful days that were lived by the ancient 



dead. 



So mutable myriads wake to the ring of their morning chime ; 

 So mutable myriads pass at the set of their final sun ; 

 And only Matter remains the august, the unchanging one 

 But no shape and no shadow of aught that she moulds on the 

 wheel of Time. 



And ye who would bring man his soul from a mystical matrix 



apart ; 

 And ye who would conjure man's life to a land beyond Matter's 



ken, 

 Must proclaim how her rape overtook her, and wherefore, and 



when, 

 Ere we bend to your idols, or take these your fairyland stories 



to heart. 



