"Refuse to the wing of the dragonfly
His sanction over the open sky,--

"A frail detached and wandering thing
Torn loose from the blossomy life of spring?

"And this is man, the myriad one,
Dust's flower and time's ephemeron.

"And I who have followed the wander-list
For a glimpse of beauty, a wraith in the mist,

"Shall be spilt at last and return to peace,
As dust which the hands of the wind release.

"This is my solace and my reward,
Who have drained life's dregs from a broken shard."

Wise and grave was the water face,
A youth grown man in a little space;

While the wayworn face by the river side
Grew gentler-lipped and shadowy-eyed;

For he heard like a sea-horn summoning him
That sound from the world's end vast and dim,

Where the river went wandering out so far
Through a gate in the mountain left ajar,