Ask no more: 'tis much, 'tis much!
Down the road the day-star calls;
Touched with change in the wide heavens, like a leaf the frost winds touch,
Flames the failing moon a moment, ere it shrivels white and falls;
Hid aloft, a wild throat holdeth sweet and sweeter intervals.
Leave him still to ease in song
Half his little heart's unrest:
Speech is his, but we may journey toward the life for which we long.
God, who gives the bird its anguish, maketh nothing manifest,
But upon our lifted foreheads pours the boon of endless quest.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
Do not be alarmed if you find this a little hard to understand. It is expressed in rather figurative language, and one has to study it to get its meaning. The poem is about those people who look forward constantly to something better, and feel that they must always be pressing forward at any cost. Who is represented as speaking? What sort of life are the travelers leaving behind them? Why do they feel a keen distress? What is the "whole" that they are striving to see? What is their "sacred hunger"? Why is it "dearer" than the feasting of those who stay at home? Notice how the third stanza reminds one of [Gloucester Moors]. Look up the word sidereal: Can you tell what it means here? "Lives and lives behind us" means a long time ago; you will perhaps have to ask your teacher for its deeper meaning. Do the travelers know where they are going? Why do they set forth? Note the description of the dawn in the fifth stanza. What is the boon of "endless quest"? Why is it spoken of as a gift (boon)? Compare the last line of this poem with the last line of The Wild Ride, on page [161]. Perhaps you will be interested to compare the Road-Hymn with Whitman's The Song of the Open Road.
Do the meter and verse-form seem appropriate here? Is anything gained by the difference in the length of the lines?
ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES
WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY
Streets of the roaring town,
Hush for him, hush, be still!
He comes, who was stricken down
Doing the word of our will.
Hush! Let him have his state,
Give him his soldier's crown.
The grists of trade can wait
Their grinding at the mill,
But he cannot wait for his honor, now the trumpet has been blown;
Wreathe pride now for his granite brow, lay love on his breast of stone.