In your Long House there is an attic-place Full of dead epics and machines that rust, And there, occasionally, with casual face, You come awhile to stir the sleepy dust;

Neither in pride not mercy, but in vast Indifference at so many gifts unsought, The yellowed satins, smelling of the past, And all the loot the lucky pirates brought.

I only bring a cup of silver air, Yet, in your casualness, receive it there.

Receive the dream too haughty for the breast, Receive the words that should have walked as bold As the storm walks along the mountain-crest And are like beggars whining in the cold.

The maimed presumption, the unskilful skill, The patchwork colors, fading from the first, And all the fire that fretted at the will With such a barren ecstasy of thirst.