AT THE ROAD-HOUSE: IN MEMORY OF

You hearken, fellows? Turned aside

Into the road-house of the past!

The prince of vagabonds is gone

To house among his peers at last.

The stainless gallant gentleman,

So glad of life, he gave no trace,

No hint he even once beheld

The spectre peering in his face;

But gay and modest held the road,

Nor feared the Shadow of the Dust;

And saw the whole world rich with joy,

As every valiant farer must.

I think that old and vasty inn

Will have a welcome guest to-night,

When Chaucer, breaking off some tale

That fills his hearers with delight,

Shall lift up his demure brown eyes

To bid the stranger in; and all

Will turn to greet the one on whom

The crystal lot was last to fall.

Keats of the more than mortal tongue

Will take grave Milton by the sleeve

To meet their kin, whose woven words

Had elvish music in the weave.

Dear Lamb and excellent Montaigne,

Sterne and the credible Defoe,

Borrow, DeQuincey, the great Dean,

The sturdy leisurist Thoreau;

The furtive soul whose dark romance,

By ghostly door and haunted stair,

Explored the dusty human heart

And the forgotten garrets there;

The moralist it could not spoil,

To hold an empire in his hands;

Sir Walter, and the brood who sprang

From Homer through a hundred lands,

Singers of songs on all men's lips,

Tellers of tales in all men's ears,

Movers of hearts that still must beat

To sorrows feigned and fabled tears;

Horace and Omar, doubting still

What mystery lurks beyond the seen,

Yet blithe and reassured before

That fine unvexed Virgilian mien;

These will companion him to-night,

Beyond this iron wintry gloom,

When Shakespeare and Cervantes bid

The great joy-masters give him room.

No alien there in speech or mood,

He will pass in, one traveller more;

And portly Ben will smile to see

The velvet jacket at the door.