When I have accomplished this quest, I would get
me home again to the little land of Upmeads, to see my father and my mother,
and to guard its meadows from waste and its houses from fire-raising:
to hold war aloof and walk in free fields, and see my children growing up
about me, and lie at last beside my fathers in the choir of St. Laurence.
The dead would I love and remember; the living would I love and cherish;
and Earth shall be the well beloved house of my Fathers, and Heaven
the highest hall thereof."
"It is well," said the Sage, "all this shalt thou do and be no little-heart,
though thou do no more. And thou, maiden?"
She looked on Ralph and said: "I lost, and then I found,
and then I lost again. Maybe I shall find the lost once more.
And for the rest, in all that this man will do, I will help,
living or dead, for I know naught better to do."
"Again it is well," said the Sage, "and the lost which was verily thine
shalt thou find again, and good days and their ending shall betide thee.
Ye shall have no shame in your lives and no fear in your deaths.
Wherefore now lieth the road free before you."
Then was he silent a while, neither spake the others aught,
but stood gazing on the dark grey plain, and the blue wall that rose
beyond it, till at last the Sage lifted up his hand and said:
"Look yonder, children, to where I point, and ye shall see
how there thrusteth out a ness from the mountain-wall,
and the end of it stands like a bastion above the lava-sea,
and on its sides and its head are streaks ruddy and tawny,
where the earth-fires have burnt not so long ago: see ye?"
Ralph looked and said: "Yea, father, I see it, and its rifts and its ridges,
and its crannies.
Pages:
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492