The Path to Sankoty

It winds along the headlands

Above the open sea —

The lonely moorland footpath

That leads to Sankoty.

The crooning sea spreads sailless

And gray to the world's rim,

Where hang the reeking fog-banks

Primordial and dim.

There fret the ceaseless currents,

And the eternal tide

Chafes over hidden shallows

Where the white horses ride.

The wistful fragrant moorlands

Whose smile bids panic cease,

Lie treeless and cloud-shadowed

In grave and lonely peace.

Across their flowering bosom,

From the far end of day

Blow clean the great soft moor-winds

All sweet with rose and bay.

A world as large and simple

As first emerged for man,

Cleared for the human drama,

Before the play began.

O well the soul must treasure

The calm that sets it free —

The vast and tender skyline,

The sea-turn's wizardry,

Solace of swaying grasses,

The friendship of sweet-fern —

And in the world's confusion

Remembering, must yearn

To tread the moorland footpath

That leads to Sankoty,

Hearing the field-larks shrilling

Beside the sailless sea.