George Essex Evans

The Wayfarers

Still the white stars burn overhead,
   The green earth swings upon her way:
Where are the voices of the dead,
           The hearts of Yesterday?

Drawn by what strange, mysterious power,
   From what dream world and magic sky
Came they to laugh on earth an hour,
           To weep, to toil, to die?

And whither gone? On what wild flight
   By planet pale and sceptred star?
What realms of sorrow or delight
           Now wander they afar?

Pale Wayfarers, whose noiseless tread
   Is near me as I seem to see
The mighty generations dead,
           And all that yet shall be!

Are Past and Future, then, a breath
   That one vast Present makes its own?
The Angel, Birth, the Shadow, Death,
           Each guards a world unknown.

Wayfarers all, we know not whence
   We came, nor whitherwards we go.
Deep in our hearts a haunting sense
           That somewhere we shall know.

Still the white stars burn overhead,
   The green earth swings upon her way:
Where are the voices of the dead,
           The hearts of yesterday?