THE SOULS OF THE SLAIN

The thick lids of Night closed upon me

Alone at the Bill

Of the Isle by the Race -

Many-caverned, bald, wrinkled of face -

And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me

To brood and be still.

No wind fanned the flats of the ocean,

Or promontory sides,

Or the ooze by the strand,

Or the bent-bearded slope of the land,

Whose base took its rest amid everlong motion

Of criss-crossing tides.

Soon from out of the Southward seemed nearing

A whirr, as of wings

Waved by mighty-vanned flies,

Or by night-moths of measureless size,

And in softness and smoothness well-nigh beyond hearing

Of corporal things.

And they bore to the bluff, and alighted -

A dim-discerned train

Of sprites without mould,

Frameless souls none might touch or might hold -

On the ledge by the turreted lantern, farsighted

By men of the main.

And I heard them say “Home!” and I knew them

For souls of the felled

On the earth's nether bord

Under Capricorn, whither they'd warred,

And I neared in my awe, and gave heedfulness to them

With breathings inheld.

Then, it seemed, there approached from the northward

A senior soul-flame

Of the like filmy hue:

And he met them and spake: “Is it you,

O my men?” Said they, “Aye! We bear homeward and hearthward

To list to our fame!”

“I've flown there before you,” he said then:

“Your households are well;

But — your kin linger less

On your glory arid war-mightiness

Than on dearer things.” — “Dearer?” cried these from the dead then,

“Of what do they tell?”

“Some mothers muse sadly, and murmur

Your doings as boys -

Recall the quaint ways

Of your babyhood's innocent days.

Some pray that, ere dying, your faith had grown firmer,

And higher your joys.

“A father broods:‘ Would I had set him

To some humble trade,

And so slacked his high fire,

And his passionate martial desire;

Had told him no stories to woo him and whet him

To this due crusade!”

“And, General, how hold out our sweethearts,

Sworn loyal as doves?”

— “Many mourn; many think

It is not unattractive to prink

Them in sables for heroes. Some fickle and fleet hearts

Have found them new loves.”

“And our wives?” quoth another resignedly,

“Dwell they on our deeds?”

— “Deeds of home; that live yet

Fresh as new — deeds of fondness or fret;

Ancient words that were kindly expressed or unkindly,

These, these have their heeds.”

— “Alas! then it seems that our glory

Weighs less in their thought

Than our old homely acts,

And the long-ago commonplace facts

Of our lives — held by us as scarce part of our story,

And rated as nought!”

Then bitterly some: “Was it wise now

To raise the tomb-door

For such knowledge? Away!”

But the rest: “Fame we prized till to-day;

Yet that hearts keep us green for old kindness we prize now

A thousand times more!”

Thus speaking, the trooped apparitions

Began to disband

And resolve them in two:

Those whose record was lovely and true

Bore to northward for home: those of bitter traditions

Again left the land,

And, towering to seaward in legions,

They paused at a spot

Overbending the Race -

That engulphing, ghast, sinister place -

Whither headlong they plunged, to the fathomless regions

Of myriads forgot.

And the spirits of those who were homing

Passed on, rushingly,

Like the Pentecost Wind;

And the whirr of their wayfaring thinned

And surceased on the sky, and but left in the gloaming

Sea-mutterings and me.