Frederick Philip Grove
LEGENDS
(IM 29-31)

---

e-Edition by Gaby Divay
© August 2007

University of Manitoba Libraries	FPG & FrL Collections	University of Manitoba Archives

AHASUERUS [45] by Frederick Philip Grove (Nova Scotia, 1909) All life has exiled me. A welcome guest I rarely was except when I was young, In some dim past which has, from rung to rung, Slipped down time's ladder to the sunken west Where I am bound.                             In some subsided sea, Thus dreamt I, stretches there a continent Where anyone, if he be so intent, Can read and con his life's epitome. This[46] continent is like a moulded map, But that all things, though on a smaller scale, Are living forest, field, and hill, and vale, From torrid zone to the great polar cap. So that a single glance will all survey That any living man in life has[47] seen; But filled are all the stretches in between With uniform and unrevealing grey. He who can find it, sees a lucent[48] line Recording all his aimless wanderings; With larger dots, like gleaming pearls on strings, To indicate his stops with brighter shine. I see that continent within my soul; And if that which the ancients say be true,[50] Then means that sight the end; thus they construe The dreamt-of vision of this wished-for goal, West of this earth where it is said to be.[51] Still for awhile must I increase the load Of age and knowledge, fruitage of the road, Till that dim shore I find on that dim sea. Much of my path I travelled unrelieved By cheering company; the few who gave Of soul and heart soon lagged into the grave: Much have I longed; and still more have I grieved. Now am I quite alone; men look aghast When they encounter me;[52] as at some sham That but mocks life. I know, to them I am The resurrected horror of the past. Yes, thus I dreamt, there looms a ruinous arch On that dim continent's most westward shore: Who passes through it, drops and is no more. There will I go to end my weary march. In Memoriam 31