adow, weaves
The charm on sleepers laid
Till Time's spent ghost comes not nor grieves
An hourless Gilead.

Ay me, I dream my eyes are wet;
I sigh, I turn, I weep.
Alack, that waking we forget
But to remember when we sleep!
O vision of closed eyes,
That burns the heart awake!
O the forgotten truth's reprise
For the forsaken's sake!

Far land, blood-red, I feel again
Thy hot, unsilenced breath;
Meet thy unburied eyes of pain
That, dying ever, find no death;
See childhood's one gold hour
Bartered for crust and bed,
And man's o'erdriven noon devour
His evening peace and bread.

I hear men sob,--ay, men,--and shout
To souls on Gilead road:
"Tell us the way--we sent ye out--
We bought ye free--we paid our blood!"
Gaunt arms make signal mad;
O, feel the woe-waves break!
Does no one hear in Gilead?
Will one, not one turn back?

Rolls higher from the land blood-red
That sea-surge of despair!
A flame creeps over Gilead,
Unseen, unfelt by any there.
They look not back, the while
Doom shadows round them dance,
And smile meets slow, unstartled smile
As in it sleep's mid-chance.

"We give our days, we give our blood,
We send ye far to see!
We break beneath the double load
That ye may walk unbowed and free!
'Tis ours, the healing shade;
'Tis ours, the singing stream;
'Tis ours, the charm on sleepers laid;
'Tis ours, the toil-won dream!"

Dim grown is Gilead, ashen, lost
To me who hear that cry.
"Our every star is hid with dust;
The way, the way! Let us not die!"
Up from the trampled ferns,
(O Beauty's praying hands!)
I stricken start, as one who turns
From plague's unholy lands.

Pale is the dream we dream alone,
An unresolving fire,
Till beacon hearts make it their own
And men are lit with man's desire.
I mourn no Gilead fair,
Back to my own I speed,
And all my tears are falling where
They sell the sun for bread.

Mine too the blow, the unwept scar;
Mine too the flames that sere;
And on my breast not one proud star
That leaves a brother's heaven bare.
Life is the search of God
For His own unity;
I walk stone-bare till all are shod,
No gold may sandal me.

I com