By the Roman Road.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1629, 21 December 1912, Page 14

By the Roman Road.

The wind it sang In the pine-tops, It sans like a humming harp; The smell of the sun on the braoken was wonderful sweet and sharp. As sharp as the piney needles, as sweet as the gods were good For the wind it sung of tho old gods, as I came through the wood! It sung how long ago 1 the Eomans made a Toad, And the gods came up from Ital- and found the man abode. It sang of the wayside altars (tho cinetops sighed like the surf). Of little shrines uplifted, of stone and scented turf. Of youths, divine and immortal, of maids as whito as the snow That glimmered among the thickets a " mort of years ago! And in the cool of dawn, all in the twilight gray, The gods camo up from Italy along tho Roman way. The altar smoke it has drifted and faded ' afar on tho hill; No wood-nymphs-haunt tho hollows; the reedy pipes are still j No more the youth Apollo shall walk in his sunshine i clear; No more the maid Diana shall follow the fallow-deer (The wood-man grew so' wise, the woodmen grew so old, The gods went back to Italy—or so tho story's told!). But the woods aro full of voioea and of shy and. secret things— Tho badger down by the brook-side, the flick of a woodcock's wings. The plump of a falling fir-cone, the pop of the sun-ripe pods. And the wind that sings in tho jnne- ' tops .the-song of the ancient gods— Tho song of the wind that says r.ho Romans made a road, \ And the gods came up from Italy and found them an abodo! —"Punch."