| THE WORLD uprose as a man to find Him— | |
| Ten thousand methods, ten thousand ends— | |
| Some bent on treasure; the more on pleasure; | |
| And some on the chaplet which fame attends: | |
| But the great deep’s voice in the distance dim | 5 |
| Said: Peace, it is well; they are seeking Him. | |
| |
| When I heard that all the world was questing, | |
| I look’d for a palmer’s staff and found, | |
| By a reed-fringed pond, a fork’d hazel-wand | |
| On a twisted tree, in a bann’d waste-ground; | 10 |
| But I knew not then what the sounding strings | |
| Of the sea-harps say at the end of things. | |
| |
| They told me, world, you were keen on seeking; | |
| I cast around for a scrip to hold | |
| Such meagre needs as the roots of weeds— | 15 |
| All weeds, but one with a root of gold; | |
| Yet I knew not then how the clangs ascend | |
| When the sea-horns peal and the searchings end. | |
| |
| An old worn wallet was that they gave me, | |
| With twelve old signs on its seven old skins; | 20 |
| And a star I stole for the good of my soul, | |
| Lest the darkness came down on my sins; | |
| For I knew not who in their life had heard | |
| Of the sea-pipes shrilling a secret word. | |
| |
| I join’d the quest that the world was making, | 25 |
| Which follow’d the false ways far and wide, | |
| While a thousand cheats in the lanes and streets | |
| Offer’d that wavering crowd to guide; | |
| But what did they know of the sea-reed’s speech | |
| When the peace-words breathe at the end for each? | 30 |
| |
| The fools fell down in the swamps and marshes; | |
| The fools died hard on the crags and hills; | |
| The lies which cheated, so long repeated, | |
| Deceived, in spite of their evil wills, | |
| Some knaves themselves at the end of all— | 35 |
| Though how should they hearken when sea-flutes call? | |
| |
| But me the scrip and the staff had strengthen’d; | |
| I carried the star; that star led me: | |
| The paths I’ve taken, of most forsaken, | |
| Do surely lead to an open sea: | 40 |
| As a clamour of voices heard in sleep, | |
| Come shouts through the dark on the shrouded deep. | |
| |
| Now it is noon; in the hush prevailing | |
| Pipes, harps and horns into flute-notes fall; | |
| The sea, conceding my star’s true leading, | 45 |
| In tongues sublime at the end of all | |
| Gives resonant utterance far and near:— | |
| ‘Cast away fear; | |
| Be of good cheer; | |
| He is here, | 50 |
| Is here!’ | |
| |
| And now I know that I sought Him only | |
| Even as child, when for flowers I sought; | |
| In the sins of youth, as in search for truth. | |
| To find Him, hold Him alone I wrought. | 55 |
| The knaves too seek Him, and fools beguiled— | |
| So speak to them also, sea-voices mild! | |
| |
| Which then was wisdom and which was folly? | |
| Did my star more than the cozening guide? | |
| The fool, as I think, at the chasm’s brink, | 60 |
| Prone by the swamp or the marsh’s side, | |
| Did, even as I, in the end rejoice, | |
| Since the voice of death must be His true voice. | |
