When the breaker-lined coast stretches dimly afar, through the desolate waste of the gale,
And the clang of the sea-gull at nightfall is heard from the deep, like a mariner's wail:
When the gray sky drops low, and the forest is bare, and the laborer is housed from the storm,
And the world is a blank, save the light of his home through the gust shining redly and warm:—
Go thou forth, if the brim of thy heart with its tropical fullness of life overflow—
If the sun of thy bliss in the zenith is hung, and no shadow reminds thee of wo!
Leave the home of thy love; leave thy labors of fame; in the rain and the darkness go forth,
When the cold winds unpausingly wail as they drive from the cheerless expanse of the North.
Thou shalt turn from the cup that was mantling before; thou shalt hear the eternal despair
Of the hearts that endured and were broken at last, from the hills and the sea and the air!