THE THREE STRANGERS
FAR are those tranquil hills,
Dyed with fair evening's rose;
On urgent, secret errand bent,
A traveller goes.
Approach him strangers three,
Barefooted, cowled; their eyes
Scan the lone, hastening solitary
With dumb surmise.
One instant in close speech
With them he doth confer:
God-sped, he hasteneth on.
That anxious traveller . . .
I was that man — in a dream:
And each world's night in vain
I patient wait on sleep to unveil
Those vivid hills again.
Would that they three could know
How yet burns on in me
Love — from one lost in Paradise —
For their grave courtesy.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1927.
The author died in 1956, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.