As One Who Having Wandered All Night Long

AS one who having wandered all night long

In a perplexed forest, comes at length

In the first hours, about the matin song,

And when the sun uprises in his strength,

To the fringed margin of the wood, and sees,

Gazing afar before him, many a mile

Of falling country, many fields and trees,

And cities and bright streams and far-off Ocean's smile:

I, O Melampus, halting, stand at gaze:

I, liberated, look abroad on life,

Love, and distress, and dusty travelling ways,

The steersman's helm, the surgeon's helpful knife,

On the lone ploughman's earth-upturning share,

The revelry of cities and the sound

Of seas, and mountain-tops aloof in air,

And of the circling earth the unsupported round:

I, looking, wonder: I, intent, adore;

And, O Melampus, reaching forth my hands

In adoration, cry aloud and soar

In spirit, high above the supine lands

And the low caves of mortal things, and flee

To the last fields of the universe untrod,

Where is no man, nor any earth, nor sea,

And the contented soul is all alone with God.