II.

    I see this August sun again
    Sheer up high heaven wheel his angry way;
    And hordes of men
    Bleared with unrestful sleep rise up another day,
    Their bodies racked with aftermaths of toil. 
    Over the city, in each gasping street,
    Shudders a haze of heat,
    Reverberant from pillar, span and plinth. 
    Once more, cribbed in this monstrous labyrinth
    Sacrificed to the Minotaur of Greed
    Men bear the turmoil, glare, sweat, brute inharmonies;
    Denial of each simplest human need,
    Loss of life’s meaning as day lags on day;
    And my rebellious spirit rises, flies
    In dreams to the green quiet wood away,
    Away!  Away!

    III.

    And now, and now...I feel the forest-moss... 
    Come!  On these moss-beds let me lie with Pan,
    Twined with the ivy-vine in tendrill’d curls,
    And I will hold all gold, that hampers man,
    Only the ashes of base, barren dross! 
    On with the love-dance of the pagan girls! 
    The pagan girls with lips all rosy-red,
    With breasts upgirt and foreheads garlanded,
    With fair white foreheads nobly garlanded! 
    With sandalled feet that weave the magic ring! 
    Now...let them sing,
    And I will pipe a tune that all may hear,
    To bid them mind the time of my wild rhyme;
    To warn profaning feet lest they draw near. 
    Away!  Away!  Beware these mystic trees! 
    Who dares to quest you now, Hesperides?

    IV.

    Great men of song, what sing ye?  Woodland meadows? 
    Rocks, trees and rills where sunlight glints to gold? 
    Sing ye the hills, adown whose sides blue shadows
    Creep when the westering day is growing old? 
    Sing ye the brooks where in the purling shallows
    The small fish dart and gleam? 
    Sing ye the pale green tresses of the willows
    That stoop to kiss the stream? 
    Or sing ye burning streets, foul with the breath
    Of sweatshop, tenement, where endlessly
    Spawned swarms of folk serve tyrant masters twain—­
    Profit, and his twin-brother, grinning Death? 
    Where millions toil, hedged off from aught save pain? 
    Far from thee ever, O mine Arcady?...

His voice ceased and silence fell between the man and woman in the old sugar-house.  Gabriel sat there by the dying fire, which cast its ruddy light over his strongly virile face, and gazed into the coals.  The girl, lying on the rude bed, her face eager, her slim strong hands tightly clasped, had almost forgotten to breathe.

At last she spoke.

“That—­that is wonderful!” she cried, a tremor of enthusiasm in her voice.

He shook his head.

“No compliments, please,” said he.

“I’m not complimenting you!  I think it is wonderful.  You’re a true poet!”