Encounter

I MET a man upon the public way:
his face was brown as a cut rick of hay;
deep in his blue eyes dwelt that light of pain,
man’s ancient heritage that none escape —
the light that dawns on the slow-rousing brain
and makes us Man forever and no more Ape —
though who shall say in those prehuman eyes
what smoulder of eternal anguish lies?

His face was brown and noble as old oak;
and as he passed he smiled and, smiling, spoke
the soft plain greeting of the peasant mind:
‘’Tis a fine day!‘ and so passed on. But I
heard in those words the faith of all mankind
proclaimed, and stared, long after he went by,
as after an angel, cord-clad and leather-shod,
and met at random on the open road.

His wrinkled face, brown as a parchment leaf,
was like a palimpsest where the world’s grief
was written: yet he smiled! What secret then
abode with the sad knowledge of his face?
What hope, on this so hopeless way of men,
looked from his eyes to greet life’s few fine days?
That look held more of wise and brave and true
than all I have said or thought my lifetime through.