Classic Poem

I

Two babes were born. The fields of corn,
Laved in the lushness of the morn,
And murmurous stretches of tall grain,
Waved round the birthplace of the twain.
And sentinel hills around the glen
Kept guard about the twin-born men,—
?Twin-born beside a country lane,
?Their sundered lots and lives made plain
?The twinless nature of the twain.
Above the gleams of mountain streams
For one there loomed the Wraith of Dreams,
And ever motioned with her hand
To some far height in some far land,
To some far land of high emprise
Where unknown seas meet unknown skies.—
?And forth he fared and travelled far
?To lands beneath the Morning Star,
?And where the Sunset Islands are.
“Oh, far away doth Beauty stray
Beside the distant founts of day.”
He followed till these founts were found,
And saw her footprint on the ground,
Where she had leaped to take her flight
On to the distant baths of night.
?But at the baths of night afar
?Her robe, that sparkles like the spar,
?Vanished behind a lonely star.
Through shadows gray he groped his way,
Through dim old lands of yesterday,
And where, lapped in a shipless sea,
The empires of to-morrow be.
And far o'er misty mounts and meads
He chased the Vision that Recedes.
?He chased through morning's rosy light
?And through the falling mists of night
?The white Wraith of the Backward Flight.
Borne far along from hills of song
He heard dim, murmurous anthems throng;
When through the desert he had come
He found the Hills of Song were dumb;
But from their skyey summits he
Saw through far mist the Halcyon Sea.
?When near the sea he heard the roar
?Of angry breakers evermore—
?And shattered wrecks were on the shore.
O'er sea and sand through every land
This Pilgrim of the Reaching Hand,
This Traveller of the Forward Gaze,
Fared for a weary length of days.
His Phantom beckoned and was gone,
The Phantom-chaser followed on.—
?His grave is in a lonely land,
?By rainless skies forever scanned,
?And vultures scream above the sand.
II

The twin-born child lived in his wild
And native mountains reconciled,
And there within his valley curled
Fed on the largess of the world;
And there, among his lowly peers,
He drank the fulness of the years.
?With Nature's thought the hills were thrilled,
?Her thought was through the skies distilled—
?His soul was open, and was filled.
The brook that flees through lowland leas
Knows all the secrets of the seas;
And from the brook beside his door
He gathered every ocean's lore.
And there were galleons of cloud
From seas no ship had ever ploughed,
?Aerial merchantmen that swim
?From Fancy's farthest islands dim,
?To bring their freight of dreams to him.
And there were trees where every breeze
Played its Eolian melodies;
And Orient voices in the wind,
Sang of the morning of mankind;
And every morn the unsullied dew
Proved the world's morning still was new.
?The orchard songster's hymn of praise
?Showed him how near were Eden's lays,
?How far away the evil days.
Through forests lone and overblown
Of night winds came a deeper tone;
There did the wind's loud anthems roll
Cathedral thoughts that fill the soul,
Great themes, from no vain babblings spun,
That weave man's thought and God's as one.
?He heard these anthems in the air
?That brought him thoughts he might not share,
?Far thoughts—for every thought was prayer.
So resting here without a fear,
The Vision that Recedes drew near.
Each day approached with friendlier grace
The smiling calmness of her face;
Each day he saw with new surprise
The nearing beauty of her eyes.
?He sleeps beneath a mossy mound
?That strawberry-tendrils twine around,
?And apple-blossoms strew the ground.