Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing
Where is the helm and the hauberk , and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow.
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the sea returning?
I don't really have any specific questions about the poem, but I like it
too much to leave it out of the discussion. Any thoughts about it, anybody? Why
is it so
sad?
*******************************************************
Although now long estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned:
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shpes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons--'twas our right
(used or misused). That right has not decayed:
We make still by the law in which we're made!
