How Then ?

HOW THEN ...?

How then, immoderate and alone,

To wander in the lanes of space,

Lost to the mortal, dear, and known,

To Time's companionable face...

Through reaches that are iced and still

And ignorant of the names we cry,

Hearing, behind the backward hill,

The grave, nostalgic music die;

And sharing, never in that air,

The sweet breath of the mortal bough,

But stripped of sense-this pilgrim, there,

And with such memories ... failing, now ...

Of a green country that he crossed

In Time and Place, and somehow lost . . . ?