The sun perished in a sea of flame,
And from young shadows the old man came;
Feeling and feeting his way along,
He hummed and psalmed a David's song.
He described rough-skinned trees,
And pasture flowers chauffeured by bees;
Of ancient mountains capped in white,
And birds swirl-courting in rapturous flight;
The flicker of a meteor's light,
Across the star-shot blanket of the night.
He sang of ivy-clung cottage bricks;
A chirping bevy of yellow chicks;
Lightning bugs of a fire's darting sparks;
Of pure snow blessed with a fawn's tiny marks;
The silky sheen of a thoroughfare's mane,
And a frost-painting etched on a window pane.
Though he walked the beach with eyes of stone,
His cry was of ecstacy, not a moan.