Ah, these fair woods the spirit crosses,
These quiet lakes, these stretched dreaming fields,
These undulate downs with piny bosses
Pointing the ridges of their sloping shields.
These valleys and these heights that screen them,
These tawnier sands where grass and tree are not,
Ah, we have known them, we have seen them,
We saw them long ago and we forgot;
We know them all, these placid countries,
And what the pathway is and what the goal;
These are the gates and these the sentries
That guard that ancient fortress of the soul.
And we speed onward flying, flying,
Over the sundering waves of hill and plain
To where they rear their heads undying
The unnamed mountains of old days again.
The snows upon their calm still summits,
The chasms, the files of trees that foot the snow,
Curving like inky frozen comets,
Into the forest-ocean spread below.
The glisten where the peaks are hoarest,
The soundless darkness of the sunken vales,
The folding leagues of shadowy forest,
Edge beyond edge till all distinctness fails.
So invulnerable it is, so deathless,
So floods the air the loveliness of it,
That we stay dazzled, rapt and breathless,
Our beings ebbing to the infinite.
There as we pause, there as we hover,
Still-poised in ecstasy, a sudden light
Breaks in our eyes, and we discover
We sit at windows gazing to the night.
Wistful and tired, with eyes a-tingle
Where still the sting of Beauty faintly smarts;
But with our mute regrets there mingle
Thanks for the resurrection of our hearts.
O night so great that will not mock us!
O stars so wise that understand the weak!
O vast consoling hands that rock us!
O strong and perfect tongues that speak!