@3WE found him in that Far-away that yet to us seems near -- We vagrants of but yesterday when idlest youth was here, -- When lightest song and laziest mirth possessed us through and through, And all the dreamy summer-earth seemed drugged with morning dew:@1 @3When our ambition scarce had shot a stalk or blade indeed: Yours, -- choked as in the garden-spot you still deferred to "weed": Mine, -- but a pipe half-cleared of pith -- as now it flats and whines In sympathetic cadence with a hiccough in the lines.@1 @3Ay, even then -- O timely hour! -- the High Gods did confer In our behalf: -- And, clothed in power, lo, came their Courier -- Not winged with flame nor shod with wind, -- but ambling down the pike, Horseback, with saddle-bags behind, and guise all human-like.@1 @3And it was given us to see, beneath his rustic rind, A native force and mastery of such inspiring kind, That half unconsciously we made obeisance. -- Smiling, thus His soul shone from his eyes and laid its glory over us.@1 . . . . . . . . . @3Though, faring still that Far-away that yet to us seems near, His form, through mists of yesterday, fades from the vision here, Forever as he rides, it is in retinue divine, -- The hearts of all his time are his, with your hale heart and mine.@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY BEFORE BANNOCKBURN by ROBERT BURNS ODE ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB by THOMAS GRAY THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION; A POEM. ENLARGED VERSION: BOOK 2 by MARK AKENSIDE LA MORT D'ARTHUR by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM |