POEMS OF OCCASION
As from the hollow deep
The soul's strong tide must keep
Its purpose still. We rest not, though we hear
No voice from heaven let fall,
No chant antiphonal
Sounding through sunlit clefts that open near;
We look not outward, but within,
And think not quite to end as we begin.
For now the questioning age
Cries to each hermitage,
Cease not to ask,—or bring again the time
When the young world's belief
Made light the mourner's grief
And strong the sage's word, the poet's rhyme,—
Ere Knowledge thrust a spear-head through
The temple's veil that priest so closely drew.
From what our fate inurns—
Save that which music yearns
To speak, in ecstasy none understand,
And (Oh, how like to it!)
The half-formed rays that flit,
Like memories vague, above the further land—
Cry, as the star-led Magi cried,
We seek, we seek, we will not be denied!
Let the blind throng await
A healer at the gate;
Our hearts press on to see what yonder lies,
Knowing that arch on arch
Shall loom across the march
And over portals gained new strongholds rise.
The search itself a glory brings,
Though foiled so oft, that seeks the soul of things.
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