Page:Poems, Savage, 1882.djvu/44

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38 LIFE

And one, whose sense of smell was lost, deplored Their folly who the odorous rose adored. And one, heart-shrivelled by his heartless loves, Mocked at young lovers and at cooing doves. And one, who talked of solid facts, oft smiled At those by poetry and art beguiled. '^ O fools and blind ! " The farmer wonders why The scholar studies, with admiring eye. The tiny scratches on the boulder's top, Whose huge obstruction only hurts his crop.

Meanwhile, the scholar in the boulder sees The wondrous story of lost centuries.

The stolid Arab, under desert skies. Sees where afar the Pyramids arise ;

But on their rocky, weather-beaten page, Reads not the strange tale of a buried age.'

The peasant by the Swiss lakes sees not there The pile-raised village lift itself in air.

And bones and arrow-heads are rubbish all To him who hears no far-off ages call.

From out the silence of the past, to say, "We were the fathers of your glad to-day."

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