Compacting men and clans, cities and states,
Aspired through ages to the unknown god:
Adventurers with the guidance of no star,
Discovering all, rich isle and barren shore,
And ever seas beyond the indolent seas
Rounding known courses with uncharted doubt:
A people wandering in the wilderness,
So vague a cloud, so dim a pillar of fire
They blindly followed to a promised land
Flowing with rivers of perennial truth—