"Son of my son, to whom the world shines new,
You are strange to me for whom the world is old.
Your thoughts are not my thoughts, and unto you
The past, sole warmth for me, is void and cold.
Another passion pours your spirit through,
Another faith has leapt upon the fold
And wrestles with the ancient faith. 'And lo!'
Lightly men say, 'Even the gods come and go!'"

He paused awhile in pacing and hung still,
Amid the thickening shades a darker shade.
Down the steep valley from the barren hill
A herd of deer with antlered leader made
Brief apparition. Mist brimmed up until
Only the great round heights yet solid stayed--
Then they too changed to spectral, and upon
The changing mist wavered, and were gone....

"Standing to-day your father's grave beside,
I knew my heart with his was covered there;
O, more than flesh did in the cold earth hide--
My past, his promise. There was none to care
Save for the body of a prince that died
As princes die; there was none whispered, 'Where
Moves now among us his unburied part?
What breast beats with the pulses of his heart?'

"--Vain thoughts are these that but a dying man
Searches among the dark caves of his mind!