Classic Poem

The foot cannot know
Whether marble or mire
The path it must go
Toward the mind's desire:

Then how shall the mind
Imagine its route?
It is brave. It is blind.
It is but a foot

Set free on the track
Of truth, if you will,
Where there's no turning back,
And no standing still,

But a long way to fare —
With mortality shod —
Maybe nowhere,
Maybe to God.

Be the shoe sheerest pain,
Or the obstacle stark,
It must stumble again
Like a foot in the dark.