CORDA CONCORDIA
Some brave discovery,
Howbeit in vain we try
To clutch the shape that lures us evermore,
It shall be ours to make,—
As, where the waters break
Upon the margin of a pathless shore,
They find, who sought for gold alone,
The sudden wonders of a clime unknown.
Such treasure by the way
Your errantry shall pay,
Nor shall it aught against your hope prevail
That not to waking eyes
The golden clouds arise
Wherewith our visions clothe the mystic Grail,
When, in blithe halts upon the road,
We sleep where pilgrims earlier gone abode.
After the twelvemonth set
When as of old they met,
(A twelvemonth and a day, and kept their tryst,)
And knight to pilgrim told
Things given them to behold,
What country found, what gained of all they wist,
(While ministering hands assign
To each a share of healing food and wine,)
So come,—when long grass waves
Above the holiest graves
Of them whose ripe adventure chides our own,—
Come where the great elms lean
Their quivering leaves and green
To shade the moss-clung roofs now sacred grown,
And where the bronze and granite tell
How Liberty was hailed with Life's farewell.
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