BEGGAR'S GOLD

Around me sounded effort manifold, As creaking cranes swung ponderously slow, At intervals I heard the hiss of steam, The rhythmic beating of an iron's blow: I thought,—this energy will sometime be Transmuted into that which all men crave, The magic metal, Gold, great Titan Gold, Whom men make monarch when he should be slave. And as I mused, above the jarring clang, I heard a faint sweet sound of flutterings, A tender movement, musical and low, As of a fledgeling trying its young wings. A gentle zephyr blew the casement wide, A woman glided past the tapestry, With russet golden hair, all gowned in gold. She looked about her hesitatingly; I heard her voice as if thro' beechen boughs, Caressive as a moor-born singing burn, And thro' it ran the lisping of the pines, The lovely lilt of some gold-dying fern.

(She sang): "Ye seek the gold of the city; Ye cheat, ye brag, ye lie; In quest of its sordid yellow Ye hunger until ye die. I offer ye gold for the having: The mint of October's glow, To warm your souls with its wonder, Your souls, in their greed-bound snow. Gold of the hedges I offer, Marvellous gold of the ghyll, Rowan-red gold from the forest, Take from me, ye who will. Gold ye need for your bodies, O men of the smoke-chained town. But know, that my gold's for the asking, Gold for a Beggar's Crown."

She silently sped As a star at morn In the saffron track, Of the day, dew-born, Leaving a longing Intensely strong To own for myself The gold of the song. The city I'll leave With footstep bold, To seek for myself The Beggar's Gold.

I woke and found a leaf upon the floor, And two more golden leaves outside the door.